Lake District
Encyclopedia
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains (or fells) but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
and the other Lake Poets
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review...
.
The majority of the area was designated as the Lake District National Park
Lake District National Park
The Lake District National Park is located in the north-west of England and is the largest of the English National Parks and the second largest in the United Kingdom. It is in the central and most-visited part of the Lake District....
in 1951. It is the largest of the thirteen National Parks
National parks of England and Wales
The national parks of England and Wales are areas of relatively undeveloped and scenic landscape that are designated under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949...
in England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
, and the second largest in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(after the Cairngorms
Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland closely associated with the mountain of the same name - Cairn Gorm.-Name:...
). It lies entirely within the modern county of Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
, shared historically by the counties of Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
, Westmorland
Westmorland
Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...
and Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
. All the land in England higher than three thousand feet above sea level lies within the National Park, including Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike is the highest mountain in England at . It is located in Lake District National Park sometimes confused with the neighbouring Sca Fell, to which it is connected by the col of Mickledore...
, the highest mountain in England. It also contains the deepest and longest lakes in England.
General
Settlement
The Lake District is one of the most highly populated national parks. There are however only a handful of major settlements within this mountainous area - the towns of KeswickKeswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
, Windermere
Windermere
Windermere is the largest natural lake of England. It is also a name used in a number of places, including:-Australia:* Lake Windermere , a reservoir, Australian Capital Territory * Lake Windermere...
, Ambleside
Ambleside
Ambleside is a town in Cumbria, in North West England.Historically within the county of Westmorland, it is situated at the head of Windermere, England's largest lake...
and Bowness-on-Windermere
Bowness-on-Windermere
Bowness-on-Windermere is a town in South Lakeland, Cumbria, England. Due its position on the banks of Windermere the town has become a tourist honeypot. Although their mutual growth has caused them to become one large settlement, the town is distinct from the town of Windermere as the two still...
being the largest four. Significant towns immediately outwith the boundary of the national park include Kendal
Kendal
Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...
, Cockermouth
Cockermouth
-History:The Romans created a fort at Derventio, now the adjoining village of Papcastle, to protect the river crossing, which had become located on a major route for troops heading towards Hadrian's Wall....
, Penrith
Penrith, Cumbria
Penrith was an urban district between 1894 and 1974, when it was merged into Eden District.The authority's area was coterminous with the civil parish of Penrith although when the council was abolished Penrith became an unparished area....
and Grange-over-Sands
Grange-over-Sands
Grange-over-Sands is a town and civil parish by the sea – with a wide tidal range, hence the "sands" name – in Cumbria, England. Historically, Grange-over-Sands was part of the County of Lancashire until 1974, when Cumbria was created under Local Government re-organisation which absorbed the area...
; each of these have important economic links with the area. Villages such as Coniston
Coniston, Cumbria
Coniston is a village and civil parish in the Furness region of Cumbria, England. It is located in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, between Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District, and Coniston Old Man; about north east of Barrow-in-Furness.-Geography and...
, Threlkeld
Threlkeld
Threlkeld is a village and civil parish in the north of the Lake District in Cumbria, England, to the east of Keswick. It lies at the southern foot of Blencathra, one of the more prominent fells in the northern Lake District, and to the north of the River Glenderamackin.Historically a part of...
, Pooley Bridge
Pooley Bridge
Pooley Bridge is a village in the Eden District of the northwestern English county of Cumbria, within the traditional borders of Westmorland....
, Broughton-in-Furness
Broughton-in-Furness
Broughton in Furness is a small town on the southern boundary of England's Lake District National Park. It is located in the Furness region of Cumbria, which was part of Lancashire before 1974...
, Grasmere
Grasmere
Grasmere is a village, and popular tourist destination, in the centre of the English Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake, and is associated with the Lake Poets...
, Newby Bridge
Newby Bridge
Newby Bridge is a small hamlet in the Lake District, Cumbria, although historically it was in Lancashire.Newby Bridge is located several miles west of Grange-over-Sands and is on the River Leven, close to the southern end of Windermere...
, Staveley
Staveley, Cumbria
Staveley is a village in the District of South Lakeland in Cumbria, England. It is situated northwest of Kendal where the River Kent is joined by its tributary the Gowan.-Geography:...
, Lindale, Gosforth
Gosforth, Cumbria
Gosforth is a village and civil parish in the Lake District, in the Borough of Copeland in Cumbria, England. It is situated on the A595 road between Whitehaven and Barrow-in-Furness. It has a population of 1,230....
and Hawkshead
Hawkshead
Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in the Cumbria, England. It is one of the main tourist honeypots in the South Lakeland area, and is dependent on the local tourist trade...
act as more local centres. The economies of almost all are intimately linked with tourism. Beyond these are a scatter of hamlets and innumerable isolated farmsteads, some of which are still tied to agriculture, others now function as part of the tourist economy.
Roads
The Lake District is almost contained within a box of trunk routesTrunk road
A trunk road, trunk highway, or strategic road is a major road—usually connecting two or more cities, ports, airports, and other things.—which is the recommended route for long-distance and freight traffic...
. It is flanked to the east by the M6 motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...
(which carries most of the traffic that would once have used the A6 road which runs from Kendal to Penrith). The A590
A590 road
The A590 is a trunk road in southern Cumbria, in the north-west of England. It runs north-east to south-west from M6 junction 36, through the towns of Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness to terminate at Vickerstown on Walney Island. The road is a mixture of dual carriageway and single carriageway,...
and A5092 trunk roads cut across its southern fringes and the A66
A66 road
The A66 is a major road in northern England which in part follows the course of the Roman road from Scotch Corner to Penrith. It runs from east of Middlesbrough in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire to Workington in Cumbria...
trunk road between Penrith and Workington cuts across its northern edge. Finally the A595
A595 road
The A595 is a primary route in Cumbria, in northern England that starts in Carlisle, passes through Whitehaven, and goes close to Workington, Cockermouth and Wigton. It passes Sellafield and Ravenglass before ending at the Dalton-in-Furness by-pass, in southern Cumbria, where it joins the A590...
trunk road runs through the coastal plains to the west of the area linking the A66 with the A5092.
Besides these, a few A roads
Great Britain road numbering scheme
The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Great Britain. Each road is given a single letter, which represents the road's category, and a subsequent number, with a length of between 1 and 4 digits. Originally introduced to arrange...
penetrate the area itself, notably the A591 which runs northwestwards from Kendal to Windermere and then on to Keswick. It continues up the east side of Bassenthwaite Lake. The A593 and A5084 link the Ambleside and Coniston areas with the A590 to the south whilst the A592 and A5074 similarly link Windermere with the A590. The A592 also continues northwards from Windermere to Ullswater and Penrith by way of the Kirkstone Pass.
Some of those valleys which are not penetrated by A roads are served by B roads
Great Britain road numbering scheme
The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Great Britain. Each road is given a single letter, which represents the road's category, and a subsequent number, with a length of between 1 and 4 digits. Originally introduced to arrange...
. The B5289 serves Lorton Vale and Buttermere and links via the Honister Pass
Honister Pass
The Honister Pass, also known as Honister Hause, is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5289 road, linking Seatoller, in the valley of Borrowdale, to Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere...
with Borrowdale
Borrowdale
Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England.Borrowdale lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland, and is sometimes referred to as Cumberland Borrowdale in order to distinguish it from another Borrowdale in the...
. The B5292 ascends the Whinlatter Pass
Whinlatter Pass
The Whinlatter Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5292 road linking Braithwaite, to the west of Keswick, with High Lorton to the south of Cockermouth....
from Lorton Vale before dropping down to Braithwaite near Keswick. The B5322 serves the valley of St John's in the Vale
St John's in the Vale
St John's in the Vale is a glacial valley in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria, England. Within the vale are a number of farms and small settlements, in addition to several disused quarry and mining works. St Johns Beck meanders northward along the floor of the vale, and is the primary route...
whilst Great Langdale is served by the B5343. Other valleys such as Little Langdale, Eskdale and Dunnerdale are served by minor roads. The latter connects with the former two by way of the Wrynose
Wrynose Pass
The Wrynose Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England between the Duddon Valley and Little Langdale.-Road:...
and Hardknott
Hardknott Pass
Hardknott Pass is a pass that carries a minor road between Eskdale and the Duddon Valley in the region of Cumbria, England, in the Lake District National Park...
passes respectively. A minor road through the Newlands Valley
Newlands Valley
The Newlands Valley is in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is regarded as one of the most picturesque and quiet valleys in the national park, even though it is situated very close to the popular tourist town of Keswick and the busy A66 road.The valley forms part of the civil...
connects via Newlands Hause with the B5289 at Buttermere. Wasdale is served by a cul-de-sac minor road as is Longsleddale and the valleys at Haweswater and Kentmere. There are intricate networks of minor roads in the lower-lying southern part of the area connecting numerous communities between Kendal, Windermere and Coniston.
Railways and ferries
The West Coast Main LineWest Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the...
skirts the eastern edge of the Lake District and the Cumbrian Coast Line
Cumbrian Coast Line
The Cumbrian Coast Line is a rail route in North West England, running from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness via Workington and Whitehaven. The line forms part of Network Rail route NW 4033, which continues via Ulverston and Grange-over-Sands to Carnforth, where it connects with the West Coast Main...
passes through the southern and western fringes of the area. A single line, the Windermere Branch Line
Windermere Branch Line
The Lakes Line is the railway line from Oxenholme to Kendal and Windermere, originally part of the Kendal and Windermere Railway.Passenger services are operated by TransPennine Express using modern Class 185 diesel multiple units....
, penetrates from Kendal to Windermere via Staveley. Lines once served Broughton-in-Furness and Coniston and another ran from Penrith to Cockermouth via Keswick but each of these was abandoned in the 1960’s. The track of the latter has been adopted in part for use by the improved A66 trunk road.
The narrow gauge Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway
Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway
The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a minimum gauge heritage railway in Cumbria, England. The line runs from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District...
runs from Ravenglass
Ravenglass
Ravenglass is a small coastal village and natural harbour in Cumbria, England. It is the only coastal town within the Lake District National Park...
on the west coast up Eskdale as far as Dalegarth Station near the hamlet of Boot, catering for tourists. Another heritage railway
Heritage railway
thumb|right|the Historical [[Khyber train safari|Khyber Railway]] goes through the [[Khyber Pass]], [[Pakistan]]A heritage railway , preserved railway , tourist railway , or tourist railroad is a railway that is run as a tourist attraction, in some cases by volunteers, and...
, the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway
Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway
The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway is a heritage railway in Cumbria, England.-Location:The L&HR runs from Haverthwaite at the southern end of the line via Newby Bridge to Lakeside at the southern end of Windermere...
runs between the two villages encompassed within its name, tourists being able to connect with the Windermere passenger ferry at Lakeside.
A vehicle-carrying cable ferry
Cable ferry
A cable ferry is guided and in many cases propelled across a river or other larger body of water by cables connected to both shores. They are also called chain ferries, floating bridges, or punts....
, the Windermere Ferry
Windermere Ferry
The Windermere Ferry is a vehicular cable ferry which crosses Windermere, a lake in the English county of Cumbria. The route forms part of the B5285 road and crosses the lake at about its mid-point, from Ferry Nab in Bowness-on-Windermere to Far Sawrey, a distance of some...
runs frequent services across Windermere. There are also seasonal passenger ferries on Coniston Water, Derwent Water and Ullswater.
Physical geography
The Lake District takes the form of a roughly circular upland massif deeply dissected by a broadly radial pattern of major valleys whose character is largely the product of repeated glaciations over the last 2 million years. Most of these valleys display the U-shape cross-section, characteristic of glacial origin and often contain elongate lakeLake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
s occupying sizeable bedrock
Bedrock
In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...
hollows often with tracts of relatively flat ground at their heads. Smaller lakes known as tarns
Tarn (lake)
A tarn is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn. A corrie may be called a cirque.The word is derived from the Old Norse word tjörn meaning pond...
occupy glacial cirques
Cirque (landform)
thumb|250 px|Two cirques with semi-permanent snowpatches in [[Abisko National Park]], [[Sweden]].A cirque or corrie is an amphitheatre-like valley head, formed at the head of a valley glacier by erosion...
at higher elevations. It is the abundance of both which has led to the area becoming known as the Lake District.
The mountains of the Lake District are also known as the "Cumbrian Mountains", although this name is less frequently used than terms like "the Lake District" or "the Lakeland Fells". Many of the higher fell
Fell
“Fell” is a word used to refer to mountains, or certain types of mountainous landscape, in Scandinavia, the Isle of Man, and parts of northern England.- Etymology :...
s are rocky in character, whilst moorland
Moorland
Moorland or moor is a type of habitat, in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, found in upland areas, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils and heavy fog...
predominates at lower altitude. Vegetation cover across better drained areas includes bracken
Bracken
Bracken are several species of large, coarse ferns of the genus Pteridium. Ferns are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells . Brackens are in the family Dennstaedtiaceae, which are noted for their large, highly...
and heather
Calluna
Calluna vulgaris is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing perennial shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade...
though much of the land is bog
Bog
A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....
gy, due to the high rainfall. Deciduous native woodland occurs on many steeper slopes below the tree line but with native oak supplemented by extensive conifer plantations in many areas, particularly Grisedale Forest in the generally lower southern part of the area.
Valleys
The principal radial valleys are (clockwise from the south) those of Dunnerdale, Eskdale, Wasdale, Ennerdale, Lorton Vale and the Buttermere valley, the Derwent valley and Borrowdale, the valleys containing Ullswater and Haweswater, Longsleddale, the Kentmere valley and those radiating from the head of Windermere including Great Langdale. The valleys serve to break the mountains up into separate blocks which have been described by various authors in different ways. The most frequently encountered approach is that made popular by Alfred WainwrightAlfred Wainwright
Alfred Wainwright MBE was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, published between 1955 and 1966 and consisting entirely of reproductions of his manuscript, has become the standard reference work to 214 of the fells of the...
who published seven separate area guides to the Lakeland Fells;
Hills (Fells)
The four highest mountains in the Lake District each exceed 3000ft (914m). These are;- Scafell PikeScafell PikeScafell Pike is the highest mountain in England at . It is located in Lake District National Park sometimes confused with the neighbouring Sca Fell, to which it is connected by the col of Mickledore...
, 978 m (3,210 ft), - Scafell, 965 m (3,162 ft),
- HelvellynHelvellynHelvellyn is a mountain in the English Lake District, the apex of the Eastern Fells. At above sea level, it is the third highest peak in both the Lake District and England...
, 951 m (3,118 ft) and - SkiddawSkiddawSkiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. With a summit at 931 m above sea level it is the fourth highest mountain in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes...
, 931 m (3,054 ft).
There are numerous mountains over 2500ft (762m) - various lists of Lake District peaks may be found at list of fells in the Lake District and the list of hills in the Lake District.
Northern Fells
The Northern FellsNorthern Fells
The Northern Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Including Skiddaw, they occupy a wide area to the north of Keswick. Smooth sweeping slopes predominate with a minimum of tarns or crags...
are a readily defined range of hills contained within a 13km diameter circle between Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
in the southwest and Caldbeck
Caldbeck
Caldbeck is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Allerdale, Cumbria, England. Historically within Cumberland, the village had 714 inhabitants according to the census of 2001. It lies on the northern edge of the Lake District. The nearest town is Wigton, 6 miles north east of the village...
in the northeast. They culminate in the 931m (3054ft) peak of Skiddaw
Skiddaw
Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. With a summit at 931 m above sea level it is the fourth highest mountain in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes...
. Other notable peaks are those of Blencathra
Blencathra
Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly mountains in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top.-Name:...
(a.k.a. Saddleback) (868m / 2848ft) and Carrock Fell
Carrock Fell
Carrock Fell is a fell in the English Lake District, situated in the northern region of the national park 13 kilometres north east of Keswick. The fell's name means "Rocky Fell" and comes from a combination of the Old Welsh language with the word "carrec" meaning rock and the Old Norse language...
. Bassenthwaite Lake
Bassenthwaite Lake
Bassenthwaite Lake is one of the largest water bodies in the English Lake District. It is long and narrow, approximately long and wide, but is also extremely shallow, with a maximum depth of about ....
occupies the valley between this massif and the North Western Fells.
North Western Fells
The North Western FellsNorth Western Fells
The North Western Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Including such favourites as Catbells and Grisedale Pike, they occupy an oval area beneath the Buttermere and Borrowdale valley systems...
lie between Borrowdale
Borrowdale
Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England.Borrowdale lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland, and is sometimes referred to as Cumberland Borrowdale in order to distinguish it from another Borrowdale in the...
and Bassenthwaite Lake to the east and Buttermere
Buttermere
Buttermere is a lake in the English Lake District in North West England. The adjacent village of Buttermere takes its name from the lake. Historically within the former county of Cumberland, the lake is now within the county of Cumbria. It is owned by the National Trust, forming part of their...
and Lorton Vale to the west. Their southernmost point is at Honister Pass
Honister Pass
The Honister Pass, also known as Honister Hause, is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5289 road, linking Seatoller, in the valley of Borrowdale, to Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere...
. This area includes the Derwent Fells above the Newlands Valley
Newlands Valley
The Newlands Valley is in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is regarded as one of the most picturesque and quiet valleys in the national park, even though it is situated very close to the popular tourist town of Keswick and the busy A66 road.The valley forms part of the civil...
and hills to the north amongst which are Dale Head
Dale Head
Dale Head is a fell in the northwestern sector of the Lake District, in northern England. It is 753 metres or 2,470 feet above sea level and stands immediately north of Honister Pass, the road between Borrowdale and Buttermere.-Topography:...
, Robinson
Robinson (Lake District)
thumb|Robinson seen from the [[Ard Crags]] ridge, with Hindscarth to the leftRobinson is a fell in the English Lake District, its southern slopes descending to Buttermere, while its northern side is set in the Newlands Valley...
. To the north stand Grasmoor
Grasmoor
Grasmoor is a mountain in the north-western part of the Lake District, northern England. It is the highest peak in a group of hills between the villages of Lorton, Braithwaite and Buttermere, and overlooks Crummock Water....
- highest in the range at 852m (2795ft), Grisedale Pike
Grisedale Pike
Grisedale Pike is a fell in the Lake District, Cumbria, England situated west of the town of Keswick in the north-western sector of the national park. At a height of 791 m it is the 40th highest Wainwright in the Lake District; it also qualifies as a Hewitt, Marilyn and Nuttall...
and the hills around the valley of Coledale
Coledale (Cumbria)
In Cumbria, England, Coledale is a valley in the northwestern region of the Lake District ~-Geography:Coledale is a narrow V shaped river valley running approximately north-east towards the Derwent Valley floodplain and the village of Braithwaite at the northeastern end...
, and in the far north-west is Thornthwaite Forest and Lord's Seat
Lord's Seat
Lord's Seat is a fell in the English Lake District. It is the highest of the group of hills north of Whinlatter Pass in the North Western Fells. The slopes of Lord's Seat are extensively forested.-Topography:...
. The fells in this area are rounded Skiddaw Slate
Skiddaw Slate
Skiddaw slate is an early Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rock, as first identified on the slopes of Skiddaw in the English Lake District....
, with few tarns and relatively few rock faces.
Western Fells
The Western FellsWestern Fells
The Western Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Centred on Great Gable they occupy a triangular area between Buttermere and Wasdale...
lie between Buttermere and Wasdale
Wasdale
Wasdale is a valley and civil parish in the western part of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Irt flows through the valley to its estuary at Ravenglass. A large part of the main valley floor is occupied by Wastwater, the deepest lake in England...
, with Sty Head forming the apex of a large triangle. Ennerdale
Ennerdale Water
Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is a glacial lake, with a maximum depth of 45 metres , and at 700 to 1,500 metres wide and 3.9 kilometres is one of the smallest lakes in the area...
bisects the area, which consists of the High Stile
High Stile
High Stile is a mountain in the western part of the Lake District in northwest England. It is the eleventh highest English Marilyn, standing 807 metres high, and has a relative height of 362 metres ....
ridge north of Ennerdale, the Loweswater Fells in the far north west, the Pillar
Pillar (Lake District)
Pillar is a mountain in the western part of the English Lake District. Situated between the valleys of Ennerdale to the north and Wasdale to the south, it is the highest point of the Pillar group . At 892 metres it is the eighth highest mountain in the Lake District...
group in the south west, and Great Gable
Great Gable
Great Gable is a mountain lying at the very heart of the English Lake District, appearing as a pyramid from Wasdale , but as a dome from most other directions. It is one of the most popular of the Lakeland fells, and there are many different routes to the summit...
(2949 feet (899 m)) near Sty Head. Other tops include Seatallan
Seatallan
Seatallan is a mountain in the western part of the English Lake District. It is rounded, grassy and fairly unassuming, occupying a large amount of land. However, it is classed as a Marilyn because of the low elevation of the col connecting it to Haycock, its nearest higher neighbour to the north...
, Haystacks and Kirk Fell
Kirk Fell
Kirk Fell is a fell in the Western part of the English Lake District. It is situated between Great Gable and Pillar on the long ring of fells surrounding the valley of Ennerdale, and also stands over Wasdale to the south...
. This area is craggy and steep, with the impressive pinnacle of Pillar Rock its showpiece. Wastwater, located in this part, is England's deepest lake.
Central Fells
The Central FellsCentral Fells
The Central Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Reaching their highest point at High Raise , they occupy a broad area to the east of Borrowdale. Perhaps unexpectedly the Central Fells are generally lower than the surrounding hills, the Lake District's general dome-like...
are lower in elevation than surrounding areas of fell, peaking at 762m (2500ft) at High Raise. They take the form of a ridge running between Derwent Water
Derwent Water
Derwentwater is one of the principal bodies of water in the Lake District National Park in north west England. It lies wholly within the Borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria....
in the west and Thirlmere
Thirlmere
Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria and the English Lake District. It runs roughly south to north, with a dam at the northern end, and is bordered on the eastern side by the A591 road and on the western side by a minor road....
in the east, from Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
in the north to Langdale Pikes in the south. A spur extends southeast to Loughrigg Fell
Loughrigg Fell
Loughrigg Fell is a hill in the central part of the English Lake District. It stands on the end of the long ridge coming down from High Raise over Silver How towards Ambleside, and is separated from its neighbours by the depression of Red Bank....
above Ambleside
Ambleside
Ambleside is a town in Cumbria, in North West England.Historically within the county of Westmorland, it is situated at the head of Windermere, England's largest lake...
. The central ridge running north over High Seat is exceptionally boggy.
Eastern Fells
The Eastern FellsEastern Fells
The Eastern Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Centred on Helvellyn they primarily comprise a north south ridge running between Ullswater and Lakeland's Central Valley.-Partition of the Lakeland Fells:...
consist of a long north-to-south ridge
Ridge
A ridge is a geological feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for some distance. Ridges are usually termed hills or mountains as well, depending on size. There are several main types of ridges:...
—the Helvellyn range
Helvellyn range
Helvellyn range is the name given to a part of the Eastern Fells in the English Lake District, fell being the local word for hill. The name comes from Helvellyn, the highest point of the group....
, running from Clough Head
Clough Head
Clough Head is a fell in the English Lake District. It is the northernmost top of the Helvellyn range in the Eastern Fells, standing to the south of Threlkeld and the A66.-Topography:...
to Seat Sandal
Seat Sandal
Seat Sandal is a fell in the English Lake District, it is situated four kilometers north of the village of Grasmere from where it is very well seen...
with the 3118 feet (950 m) Helvellyn
Helvellyn
Helvellyn is a mountain in the English Lake District, the apex of the Eastern Fells. At above sea level, it is the third highest peak in both the Lake District and England...
at its highest point. The western slopes of these summits tend to be grassy, with rocky corrie
Cirque
Cirque may refer to:* Cirque, a geological formation* Makhtesh, an erosional landform found in the Negev desert of Israel and Sinai of Egypt*Cirque , an album by Biosphere* Cirque Corporation, a company that makes touchpads...
s and crag
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...
s on the eastern side. The Fairfield
Fairfield (Lake District)
Fairfield is a fell in the English Lake District. It is the highest of a group of hills in the Eastern Fells, standing to the south of the Helvellyn range.-Topography:...
group lies to the south of the range, and forms a similar pattern with towering rock faces and hidden valleys spilling into the Patterdale
Patterdale
Patterdale is a small village and civil parish in the eastern part of the English Lake District in the Eden District of Cumbria, and the long valley in which they are found, also called the Ullswater Valley....
valley. It culminates in the height of Red Screes
Red Screes
Red Screes is a fell in the English Lake District, situated between the villages of Patterdale and Ambleside. It is an outlier of the Fairfield group in the Eastern Fells, but is separated from its neighbours by low cols...
overlooking the Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of .This is the Lake District's highest pass that is open to motor traffic and it connects Ambleside in the Rothay Valley to Patterdale in the Ullswater Valley - the A592 road. In places,...
.
Far Eastern Fells
The Far Eastern FellsFar Eastern Fells
The Far Eastern Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Reaching their highest point at High Street they occupy a broad area to the east of Ullswater and Kirkstone Pass. Much quieter than the central areas of Lakeland they offer in general easier but less exciting walking as the...
refer to all of the Lakeland fells to the east of Ullswater and the A592 road running south to Windermere. At 828 m (2,717 ft), the peak known as High Street
High Street (Lake District)
High Street is a fell in the English Lake District. At 828 metres , its summit is the highest point in the far eastern part of the national park. The fell is named after the Roman road which ran over the summit.-History and Naming:...
is the highest point on a complex ridge which runs broadly north-south and overlooks the hidden valley of Haweswater
Haweswater Reservoir
Haweswater is a reservoir in the English Lake District, built in the valley of Mardale in the county of Cumbria. The controversial construction of the Haweswater dam started in 1929, after Parliament passed an Act giving the Manchester Corporation permission to build the reservoir to supply water...
to its east. In the north of this region are the lower fells of Martindale Common and Bampton Common whilst in the south are the fells overlooking the Kentmere
Kentmere
Kentmere is a valley, village and civil parish in the Lake District National Park, a few miles from Kendal in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. It is historically part of Westmorland...
valley. Further to the east, beyond Mardale
Mardale
Mardale is a glacial valley in the Lake District, in northern England. The valley used to have a hamlet at its head, called Mardale Green, but this village was submerged in 1935 when the water level of the valley's lake, Haweswater, was raised to form Haweswater Reservoir by the Manchester...
and Longsleddale
Longsleddale
Longsleddale is a valley and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of the English county of Cumbria. It includes the hamlet of Sadgill. The parish has a population of 73....
is Shap Fell
Shap
Shap is a linear village and civil parish located amongst fells and isolated dales in Eden district, Cumbria, England. The village lies along the A6 road and the West Coast Main Line, and is near to the M6 motorway...
, an extensive area consisting of high moorland
Moorland
Moorland or moor is a type of habitat, in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, found in upland areas, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils and heavy fog...
, more rolling and Pennine
Pennines
The Pennines are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of...
in nature than the mountains to the west.
Southern Fells
The Southern FellsSouthern Fells
Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg|thumb|300px|The Scafellsrect 23 372 252 419 Slight Side rect 173 794 560 834 Scafell East Buttressrect 707 787 893 861 Esk Pike or Crag rect 245 303 409 358 Sca Fell rect 408 238 637 280 Mickledore Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg|thumb|300px|The Scafellsrect 23...
occupy the southwestern quarter of the Lake District. They can be regarded as comprising a northern grouping between Wasdale, Eskdale and the two Langdale valleys, a southeastern group east of Dunnerdale and south of Little Langdale and a southwestern group bounded by Eskdale to the north and Dunnerdale to the east.
The first group includes England's highest mountains; Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike is the highest mountain in England at . It is located in Lake District National Park sometimes confused with the neighbouring Sca Fell, to which it is connected by the col of Mickledore...
in the centre, at 3209 feet (978 m) and Scafell one mile (1.6 km) to the south-west. Though it is slightly lower it has a 700 feet (213.4 m) rockface, Scafell Crag on its northern side. It also includes the Wastwater Screes overlooking Wasdale, the Glaramara
Glaramara
Glaramara is a fell in the English Lake District in Cumbria. It is a substantial fell that is part of a long ridge that stretches for over six kilometres from Stonethwaite in Borrowdale up to the important mountain pass of Esk Hause...
ridge overlooking Borrowdale, the three tops of Crinkle Crags
Crinkle Crags
Crinkle Crags is a fell in the English Lake District in the county of Cumbria. It forms part of two major rings of mountains, surrounding the valleys of Great Langdale and Upper Eskdale. The name reflects the fell's physical appearance as its summit ridge is a series of five rises and depressions ...
, Bowfell
Bowfell
Bowfell is a pyramid-shaped mountain lying at the heart of the English Lake District, in the Southern Fells area. It is the sixth highest mountain in the lakes and one of the most popular of the Lake District fells...
and Esk Pike
Esk Pike
Esk Pike is a fell in the English Lake District, one of the great cirque of hills forming the head of Eskdale.-Topography:The Southern Fells include the highest ground in England, a horseshoe which begins with Scafell and Scafell Pike in the west and then curves around the north of Upper Eskdale to...
. The core of the area is darined by the infant River Esk. Collectively these are some of the Lake District's most rugged hillsides.
The second group, otherwise known as the Furness Fells or Coniston Fells, have as their northern boundary the steep and narrow Hardknott
Hardknott Pass
Hardknott Pass is a pass that carries a minor road between Eskdale and the Duddon Valley in the region of Cumbria, England, in the Lake District National Park...
and Wrynose
Wrynose Pass
The Wrynose Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England between the Duddon Valley and Little Langdale.-Road:...
Passes.
The third group to the west of the Duddon includes Harter Fell and the long ridge leading over Whitfell
Whitfell
Whitfell is a hill in the southwestern part of the Lake District. It is the highest point between Black Combe and Harter Fell on the broad ridge to the west of the Duddon Valley...
to Black Combe
Black Combe
Black Combe is a fell in the south-west corner of the Lake District National Park, just four miles from the Irish Sea. It lies near the west coast of Cumbria in the borough of Copeland and more specifically, an area known as South Copeland...
and the sea. The south of this region consists of lower forests and knolls, with Kirkby Moor
Kirkby Moor
Kirkby Moor is a poorly defined moorland area in southern Cumbria, England, named after the village of Kirkby-in-Furness, but stretching both sides of the A5092 road, and thus spanning the border of the Lake District National Park...
on the southern boundary. The south-western Lake District ends near the Furness peninsula
Furness
Furness is a peninsula in south Cumbria, England. At its widest extent, it is considered to cover the whole of North Lonsdale, that part of the Lonsdale hundred that is an exclave of the historic county of Lancashire, lying to the north of Morecambe Bay....
.
South Eastern area
The south-eastern area is the territory between Coniston WaterConiston Water
Coniston Water in Cumbria, England is the third largest lake in the English Lake District. It is five miles long, half a mile wide, has a maximum depth of 184 feet , and covers an area of . The lake has an elevation of 143 feet above sea level...
and Windermere
Windermere
Windermere is the largest natural lake of England. It is also a name used in a number of places, including:-Australia:* Lake Windermere , a reservoir, Australian Capital Territory * Lake Windermere...
and east of Windermere towards Kendal and south to Lindale. There are no high summits in this area which is mainly low hills, knolls and limestone cuesta
Cuesta
In structural geology and geomorphology, a cuesta is a ridge formed by gently tilted sedimentary rock strata in a homoclinal structure. Cuestas have a steep slope, where the rock layers are exposed on their edges, called an escarpment or, if more steep, a cliff...
s such as Gummer's How
Gummer's How
Gummer's How is a hill in the southern part of the Lake District, on the eastern shore of Windermere, near its southern end. How, derived from the Old Norse word haugr, is a common local term for a hill or mound....
and Whitbarrow
Whitbarrow
Whitbarrow is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserve in Cumbria, and forms part of the Morecambe Bay Pavements Special Area of Conservation due to its supporting some of the best European examples of natural limestone habitats...
. Indeed it rises only as high as 333m at Top o' Selside east of Coniston Water; The wide expanse of Grizedale Forest
Grizedale Forest
Grizedale Forest is a 24.47 km² area of woodland in the Lake District of North West England, located to the east of Coniston Water and to the south of Hawkshead. It comprises a number of hills, small tarns and the settlements of Grizedale and Satterthwaite...
stands between the two lakes. Kendal
Kendal
Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...
and Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay is a large bay in northwest England, nearly due east of the Isle of Man and just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 310 km².-Natural features:The rivers Leven,...
stand at the eastern and southern edges of the area.
Lakes
Bassenthwaite Lake
Bassenthwaite Lake is one of the largest water bodies in the English Lake District. It is long and narrow, approximately long and wide, but is also extremely shallow, with a maximum depth of about ....
. All the others such as Windermere
Windermere (lake)
Windermere is the largest natural lake in England. It is a ribbon lake formed in a glacial trough after the retreat of ice at the start of the current interglacial. It has been one of the country’s most popular places for holidays and summer homes since the arrival of the Kendal and Windermere...
, Coniston Water
Coniston Water
Coniston Water in Cumbria, England is the third largest lake in the English Lake District. It is five miles long, half a mile wide, has a maximum depth of 184 feet , and covers an area of . The lake has an elevation of 143 feet above sea level...
, Ullswater
Ullswater
Ullswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, being approximately nine miles long and 0.75 miles wide with a maximum depth of slightly more than ....
and Buttermere
Buttermere
Buttermere is a lake in the English Lake District in North West England. The adjacent village of Buttermere takes its name from the lake. Historically within the former county of Cumberland, the lake is now within the county of Cumbria. It is owned by the National Trust, forming part of their...
are meres, tarns and waters, with mere
Mere (lake)
Mere in English refers to a lake that is broad in relation to its depth, e.g. Martin Mere. A significant effect of its shallow depth is that for all or most of the time, it has no thermocline.- Etymology :...
being the least common and water being the most common. The major lakes and reservoirs in the National Park are given below.
- Bassenthwaite LakeBassenthwaite LakeBassenthwaite Lake is one of the largest water bodies in the English Lake District. It is long and narrow, approximately long and wide, but is also extremely shallow, with a maximum depth of about ....
- Brotherswater
- ButtermereButtermereButtermere is a lake in the English Lake District in North West England. The adjacent village of Buttermere takes its name from the lake. Historically within the former county of Cumberland, the lake is now within the county of Cumbria. It is owned by the National Trust, forming part of their...
- Coniston WaterConiston WaterConiston Water in Cumbria, England is the third largest lake in the English Lake District. It is five miles long, half a mile wide, has a maximum depth of 184 feet , and covers an area of . The lake has an elevation of 143 feet above sea level...
- Crummock WaterCrummock WaterCrummock Water is a lake in the Lake District in Cumbria, North West England situated between Buttermere to the south and Loweswater to the north. Crummock Water is two and a half miles long, three quarters of a mile wide and 140ft deep. The River Cocker is considered to start at the north of the...
- Derwent WaterDerwent WaterDerwentwater is one of the principal bodies of water in the Lake District National Park in north west England. It lies wholly within the Borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria....
- Devoke WaterDevoke WaterDevoke Water is a small lake in the mid-west region of the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is the largest tarn in the Lake District....
- Elter Water
- Ennerdale WaterEnnerdale WaterEnnerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is a glacial lake, with a maximum depth of 45 metres , and at 700 to 1,500 metres wide and 3.9 kilometres is one of the smallest lakes in the area...
- Esthwaite WaterEsthwaite WaterEsthwaite Water is one of the smaller and lesser known lakes in the Lake District national park in northern England. It is situated between the much larger lakes of Windermere and Coniston Water, in the traditional county of Lancashire; since 1974 in the administrative county of Cumbria...
- GrasmereGrasmere (lake)Grasmere is one of the smaller lakes of the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It gives its name to the village of Grasmere, famously associated with the poet William Wordsworth, which lies immediately to the north of the lake....
- Haweswater ReservoirHaweswater ReservoirHaweswater is a reservoir in the English Lake District, built in the valley of Mardale in the county of Cumbria. The controversial construction of the Haweswater dam started in 1929, after Parliament passed an Act giving the Manchester Corporation permission to build the reservoir to supply water...
- HayeswaterHayeswaterHayeswater is a small lake within the Lake District of Cumbria, England.The lake is situated about a mile SE of the hamlet of Hartsop in the Patterdale Valley. It nestles between The Knott to its west and Gray Crag to the east and it is at an altitude of almost 1,400 feet . The lake is natural...
- LoweswaterLoweswaterLoweswater is one of the smaller lakes in the English Lake District. The village of Loweswater is situated at the foot of the lake.The lake is not far from Cockermouth and is also easily reached from elsewhere in West Cumbria. The group of fells to the south of Loweswater is known as the Loweswater...
- Rydal WaterRydal WaterRydal Water is a small lake in the central part of the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is located near the hamlet of Rydal, between Grasmere and Ambleside in the Rothay Valley....
- ThirlmereThirlmereThirlmere is a reservoir in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria and the English Lake District. It runs roughly south to north, with a dam at the northern end, and is bordered on the eastern side by the A591 road and on the western side by a minor road....
- UllswaterUllswaterUllswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, being approximately nine miles long and 0.75 miles wide with a maximum depth of slightly more than ....
- Wast WaterWast WaterWast Water or Wastwater is a lake located in Wasdale, a valley in the western part of the Lake District National Park, England. The lake is approximately 4.6 kilometres long and 600 metres wide. It is the deepest lake in England at 79 metres , and is owned by the National Trust...
- WindermereWindermere (lake)Windermere is the largest natural lake in England. It is a ribbon lake formed in a glacial trough after the retreat of ice at the start of the current interglacial. It has been one of the country’s most popular places for holidays and summer homes since the arrival of the Kendal and Windermere...
More lakes, tarns and reservoirs can be found on the list of lakes in the Lake District.
Geology
The Lake District's geology is very complex but well-studied. A graniteGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
batholith
Batholith
A batholith is a large emplacement of igneous intrusive rock that forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust...
beneath the area is responsible for this upland massif, its relatively low density causing the area to be 'buoyed up'. The granite can be seen at the surface as the Ennerdale, Skiddaw, Carrock Fell, Eskdale and Shap granites.
Broadly speaking the area can be divided into three bands, the divisions between which run southwest to northeast. Generally speaking the rocks become younger from northwest to southeast. The northwestern band is composed of early to mid Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....
s – largely mudstone
Mudstone
Mudstone is a fine grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Grain size is up to 0.0625 mm with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope. With increased pressure over time the platey clay minerals may become aligned, with the...
s and siltstone
Siltstone
Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...
s of marine origin. Together they comprise the Skiddaw Group
Skiddaw Group
For the Skiddaw group of hills, see Skiddaw GroupThe Skiddaw Group is a group of sedimentary rock formations named after the mountain Skiddaw in the English Lake District. The rocks are Ordovician in age. They are largely mudstones and siltstones with subordinate wacke-type sandstones...
and include the rocks traditionally known as the Skiddaw Slate
Skiddaw Slate
Skiddaw slate is an early Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rock, as first identified on the slopes of Skiddaw in the English Lake District....
s. Their friability generally leads to mountains with relatively smooth slopes such as Skiddaw itself.
The central band is a mix of volcanic and sedimentary rocks of mid to late Ordovician age comprising the lavas and tuff
Tuff
Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...
s of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, erupted as the former Iapetus
Iapetus Ocean
The Iapetus Ocean was an ocean that existed in the Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic eras of the geologic timescale . The Iapetus Ocean was situated in the southern hemisphere, between the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia...
ocean was subducted
Subduction
In geology, subduction is the process that takes place at convergent boundaries by which one tectonic plate moves under another tectonic plate, sinking into the Earth's mantle, as the plates converge. These 3D regions of mantle downwellings are known as "Subduction Zones"...
beneath what is now the Scottish border during the Caledonian orogeny
Caledonian orogeny
The Caledonian orogeny is a mountain building era recorded in the northern parts of the British Isles, the Scandinavian Mountains, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe. The Caledonian orogeny encompasses events that occurred from the Ordovician to Early Devonian, roughly...
. These rocks give rise to the craggy landscapes typical of the central fells.
The southeastern band comprises the mudstones and wackes of the Windermere Supergroup and which includes (successively) the rocks of the Dent, Stockdale, Tranearth, Coniston and Kendal Groups. These are generally a little less resistant to erosion than the rocks sequence to the north and underlie much of the lower landscapes around Coniston and Windermere.
Later intrusion
Intrusion
An intrusion is liquid rock that forms under Earth's surface. Magma from under the surface is slowly pushed up from deep within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can take millions of years. As the rock slowly...
s have formed individual outcrops of igneous rock
Igneous rock
Igneous rock is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava...
in each of these groups.
Around the edges of these Ordovician and Silurian rocks on the northern, eastern and southern fringes of the area is a semi-continuous outcrop of Carboniferous Limestone
Carboniferous limestone
Carboniferous Limestone is a term used to describe a variety of different types of limestone occurring widely across Great Britain and Ireland which were deposited during the Dinantian epoch of the Carboniferous period. They were formed between 363 and 325 million years ago...
seen most spectacularly at places like Whitbarrow Scar and Scout Scar.
Climate
The Lake District's location on the north west coast of England, coupled with its mountainous geography, makes it the dampest part of England. The UK Met OfficeMet Office
The Met Office , is the United Kingdom's national weather service, and a trading fund of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...
reports average annual precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...
of more than 2000 millimetres (78.7 in), but with very large local variation. Although the entire region receives above average rainfall, there is a wide disparity between the amount of rainfall in the western and eastern lakes. Lake District has relief
Terrain
Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...
rainfall. Seathwaite in Borrowdale
Borrowdale
Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England.Borrowdale lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland, and is sometimes referred to as Cumberland Borrowdale in order to distinguish it from another Borrowdale in the...
is the wettest inhabited place in England with an average of 3300 millimetres (129.9 in) of rain a year, while nearby Sprinkling Tarn is even wetter, recording over 5000 millimetres (196.9 in) per year; by contrast, Keswick, at the end of Borrowdale
Borrowdale
Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England.Borrowdale lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland, and is sometimes referred to as Cumberland Borrowdale in order to distinguish it from another Borrowdale in the...
receives 1470 millimetres (57.9 in) per year, and Penrith
Penrith, Cumbria
Penrith was an urban district between 1894 and 1974, when it was merged into Eden District.The authority's area was coterminous with the civil parish of Penrith although when the council was abolished Penrith became an unparished area....
(just outside the Lake District) only 870 millimetres (34.3 in). March to June tend to be the driest months, with October to January the wettest, but at low levels there is relatively little difference between months.
The Lake District is also windy, although sheltered valleys experience gale
Gale
A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots of sustained surface winds. Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are...
s on an average of five days a year. In contrast, the coastal areas have 20 days of gales; while the fell tops may have 100 days of gales per year.
The maritime climate means that the Lake District experiences relatively moderate temperature variations through the year. Mean temperature in the valleys ranges from about 3 °C (37 °F) in January to around 15 °C (59 °F) in July. (By comparison, Moscow, at the same latitude, ranges from −10 °C to 19 °C/14 °F to 66 °F).
The relatively low height of most of the fells means that, while snow is expected during the winter, they can be free of snow at any time of the year. Normally, significant snow fall only occurs between November and April. On average, snow falls on Helvellyn
Helvellyn
Helvellyn is a mountain in the English Lake District, the apex of the Eastern Fells. At above sea level, it is the third highest peak in both the Lake District and England...
67 days per year. During the year, valleys typically experience 20 days with snow falling, a further 200 wet days, and 145 dry days.
Hill fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
is common at any time of year, and the fells average only around 2.5 hours of sunshine per day, increasing to around 4.1 hours per day on the coastal plains.
Wildlife
The area is home to a plethora of wildlife, some of which is unique in England. It provides a home for the red squirrelRed Squirrel
The red squirrel or Eurasian red squirrel is a species of tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus common throughout Eurasia...
and colonies of sundew
Sundew
Drosera, commonly known as the sundews, comprise one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surface. The insects are used to supplement...
and butterwort, two of the few carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...
s native to Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. England's only nesting pair of Golden Eagle
Golden Eagle
The Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
s can be found in the Lake District. The female Golden Eagle has not been seen since 2004 although the male still remains.
The lakes of the Lake District support three rare and endangered species of fish: the vendace
Coregonus vandesius
Coregonus vandesius, the vendace, is a freshwater whitefish found in the United Kingdom. Population surveys of this species since the 1960s have revealed a steady decline.-Taxonomy:...
, which can be found only in Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwent Water, the schelly
Schelly
The schelly is a designation for four populations of freshwater whitefish in the English Lake District, Cumbria. The native populations of this fish inhabit the Brothers Water, Haweswater, Red Tarn and Ullswater, and occupy a total area of about 20 square kilometers...
, which lives in Brothers Water, Haweswater, Red Tarn and Ullswater, and the Arctic char
Arctic char
Arctic char or Arctic charr is both a freshwater and saltwater fish in the Salmonidae family, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine lakes and coastal waters. No other freshwater fish is found as far north. It is the only species of fish in Lake Hazen, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic...
r, which can be found in Buttermere, Coniston Water, Crummock Water, Ennerdale Water, Haweswater, Loweswater, Thirlmere, Wast Water, and Windermere.
In recent years, some important changes have been made to fisheries byelaws covering the north-west region of England, to help protect some of the rarest fish species. In 2002, the Environment Agency
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is a British non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government that serves England and Wales.-Purpose:...
introduced a new fisheries byelaw, banning the use of all freshwater fish as live or dead bait in 14 of the lakes in the Lake District. Anglers not complying with the new byelaw can face fines of up to £2,500.
There are 14 lakes in the Lake District which are affected. These are: Bassenthwaite Lake, Brothers Water, Buttermere, Coniston Water, Crummock Water, Derwent Water, Ennerdale Water, Haweswater, Loweswater, Red Tarn, Thirlmere, Ullswater, Wast Water and Windermere.
The lakes and waters of the Lake District do not naturally support as many species of fish as other similar habitats in the south of the country and elsewhere in Europe. Some fish that do thrive there are particularly at risk from introduction of new species.
The introduction of non-native fish can lead to the predation of the native fish fauna or competition for food. There is also the risk of disease being introduced, which can further threaten native populations. In some cases, the introduced species can disturb the environment so much that it becomes unsuitable for particular fish. For example, a major problem has been found with ruffe
Ruffe
The Eurasian Ruffe or simply Ruffe is a freshwater fish found in temperate regions of Europe and northern Asia. It has been introduced into the Great Lakes of North America, reportedly with unfortunate results...
. This non-native fish has now been introduced into a number of lakes in recent years. It is known that ruffe eat the eggs of vendace, which are particularly vulnerable because of their long incubation period. This means that they are susceptible to predators for up to 120 days. The eggs of other fish, for example roach
Rutilus
Rutilus is a genus of fishes in the family Cyprinidae, commonly called roaches. Locally, the name "roach" without any further qualifiers is also used for particular species, particularly the Common Roach Rutilus (Latin for "shining, red, golden, auburn") is a genus of fishes in the family...
, are only at risk for as little as three days.
Agriculture and Forestry
Domestic sheep
Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...
, has been the major industry in the region since Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
times. The breed most closely associated with the area is the tough Herdwick
Herdwick (sheep)
The Herdwick is a breed of domestic sheep native to the Lake District of Cumbria in North West England. The name "Herdwick" is derived from the Old Norse herdvyck, meaning sheep pasture...
, with Rough Fell
Rough Fell (sheep)
The Rough Fell is an upland breed of sheep, originating in the UK. It is common on fell and moorland farms, its distribution embracing a large proportion of South Cumbria, parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, North Lancashire and, more recently, upland parts of Devon...
and Swaledale
Swaledale (sheep)
Swaledale is a breed of domestic sheep named after the Yorkshire valley of Swaledale. They are found throughout the more mountainous areas of Great Britain, but particularly in County Durham, Yorkshire, and most commonly around the pennine fells of Cumbria....
sheep also common. Sheep farming remains important both for the economy of the region and for preserving the landscape which visitors want to see. Features such as dry stone walls, for example, are there as a result of sheep farming. Some land is also used for silage
Silage
Silage is fermented, high-moisture fodder that can be fed to ruminants or used as a biofuel feedstock for anaerobic digesters. It is fermented and stored in a process called ensiling or silaging, and is usually made from grass crops, including corn , sorghum or other cereals, using the entire...
and dairy farming
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
.
The area was badly affected by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth
Foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids...
disease across the United Kingdom in 2001. Thousands of sheep, grazing on the fellsides across the District, were destroyed. In replacing the sheep, one problem to overcome was that many of the lost sheep were heafed, that is, they knew their part of the unfenced fell and did not stray, with this knowledge being passed between generations. With all the sheep lost at once, this knowledge has to be re-learnt and some of the fell
Fell
“Fell” is a word used to refer to mountains, or certain types of mountainous landscape, in Scandinavia, the Isle of Man, and parts of northern England.- Etymology :...
s have had discreet electric fences strung across them for a period of five years, to allow the sheep to "re-heaf".
Whinlatter Pass
The Whinlatter Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5292 road linking Braithwaite, to the west of Keswick, with High Lorton to the south of Cockermouth....
, in Ennerdale
Ennerdale Water
Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is a glacial lake, with a maximum depth of 45 metres , and at 700 to 1,500 metres wide and 3.9 kilometres is one of the smallest lakes in the area...
and at Grizedale Forest
Grizedale Forest
Grizedale Forest is a 24.47 km² area of woodland in the Lake District of North West England, located to the east of Coniston Water and to the south of Hawkshead. It comprises a number of hills, small tarns and the settlements of Grizedale and Satterthwaite...
amongst other places. There are extensive plantations of non-native pine trees.
Industry
With its wealth of rock types and their abundance in the landscape, mining and quarrying have long been significant activities in the Lake District economy. In NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
times, the Lake District was a major source of stone axe
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
s, examples of which have been found all over Britain. The primary site, on the slopes of the Langdale Pikes, is sometimes described as a "stone axe factory" of the Langdale axe industry
Langdale axe industry
The Langdale axe industry is the name given by archaeologists to the centre of a specialised stone tool manufacturing at Great Langdale in England's Lake District during the Neolithic period .The area has outcrops of fine-grained greenstone suitable for making polished axes which have been...
. Some of the earliest stone circle
Stone circle
A stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle. Such monuments have been constructed across the world throughout history for many different reasons....
s in Britain are connected with this industry.
Mining, particularly of copper, lead (often associated with quantities of silver), baryte, graphite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
and slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
, was historically a major Lakeland industry, mainly from the 16th century to the 19th century. Coppiced woodland was used extensively to provide charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
for smelting. Some mining still takes place today; for example, slate mining continues at the Honister Mines
Honister Slate Mine
The Honister Slate Mine is a group of slate mines and quarries located at the top of the Honister Pass in the Lake District in England. The earliest reference to quarrying at this location is from 1728.-History:...
, at the top of Honister Pass
Honister Pass
The Honister Pass, also known as Honister Hause, is a mountain pass in the English Lake District. It is located on the B5289 road, linking Seatoller, in the valley of Borrowdale, to Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere...
. Abandoned mine-workings can be found on fell-sides throughout the district. The locally mined graphite led to the development of the pencil
Pencil
A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
industry, especially around Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
.
Development of tourism
Early visitors to the Lake District, who travelled for the education and pleasure of the journey, include Celia FiennesCelia Fiennes
Celia Fiennes was an English traveller. Born in Wiltshire, she was the daughter of an English Civil War Parliamentarian Colonel, who was in turn the second son of the William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. Celia Fiennes died in Hackney in 1741.-Pioneering Female Traveller:Fiennes never married...
who in 1698 undertook a journey the length of England, including riding through Kendal
Kendal
Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...
and over Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of .This is the Lake District's highest pass that is open to motor traffic and it connects Ambleside in the Rothay Valley to Patterdale in the Ullswater Valley - the A592 road. In places,...
into Patterdale
Patterdale
Patterdale is a small village and civil parish in the eastern part of the English Lake District in the Eden District of Cumbria, and the long valley in which they are found, also called the Ullswater Valley....
. Her experiences and impressions were published in her book Great Journey to Newcastle and Cornwall:
- As I walked down at this place I was walled on both sides by those inaccessible high rocky barren hills which hang over one’s head in some places and appear very terrible; and from them springs many little currents of water from the sides and clefts which trickle down to some lower part where it runs swiftly over the stones and shelves in the way, which makes a pleasant rush and murmuring noise and like a snowball is increased by each spring trickling down on either side of those hills, and so descends into the bottoms which are a Moorish ground in which in many places the waters stand, and so form some of those Lakes as it did here.
In 1724, Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
published the first volume of A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain. He commented on Westmorland
Westmorland
Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...
that it was:
- the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England, or even Wales itself; the west side, which borders on Cumberland, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable mountains which, in the language of the country, are called fells.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the area was becoming more popular with travellers. This was partly a result of wars in Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
, restricting the possibility of travel there. In 1778 Father Thomas West
Thomas West (clergyman)
Thomas West was a Jesuit priest, antiquary and author, significant in being one of the first to write about the attractions of the Lake District...
produced A Guide to the Lakes, which began the era of modern tourism.
Windermere (lake)
Windermere is the largest natural lake in England. It is a ribbon lake formed in a glacial trough after the retreat of ice at the start of the current interglacial. It has been one of the country’s most popular places for holidays and summer homes since the arrival of the Kendal and Windermere...
below Claife Heights
Claife Heights
Claife Heights is a Marilyn in the Lake District, near to Windermere in Cumbria, England....
) can be visited today.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
published his Guide to the Lakes in 1810, and by 1835 it had reached its fifth edition, now called A Guide through the District of the Lakes in the North of England. This book was particularly influential in popularising the region. Wordsworth's favourite valley was Dunnerdale or the Duddon Valley
Duddon Valley
The Duddon Valley is a valley in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Duddon flows through the valley, rising in the mountains between Eskdale and Langdale, before flowing into the Irish Sea near Broughton in Furness...
nestling in the south-west of the Lake District.
The railways led to another expansion in tourism. The Kendal and Windermere Railway
Kendal and Windermere Railway
The Kendal and Windermere Railway is a railway in Cumbria in north-west England. It was built as a railway from the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway at Oxenholme via Kendal to near Windermere, opening fully in April 1847. The engineer was Joseph Locke and the partnership of contractors consisted of...
was the first to penetrate the Lake District, reaching Kendal
Kendal
Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...
in 1846 and Windermere
Windermere (town)
Windermere is a town and civil parish in the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England. It has a population of 8,245. It lies about half a mile away from the lake, Windermere...
in 1847. The line to Coniston
Coniston, Cumbria
Coniston is a village and civil parish in the Furness region of Cumbria, England. It is located in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, between Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District, and Coniston Old Man; about north east of Barrow-in-Furness.-Geography and...
opened in 1848 (although until 1857 this was only linked to the national network with ferries between Fleetwood
Fleetwood
Fleetwood is a town within the Wyre district of Lancashire, England, lying at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 26,840 people at the 2001 Census. It forms part of the Greater Blackpool conurbation. The town was the first planned community of the Victorian era...
and Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...
); the line from Penrith
Penrith, Cumbria
Penrith was an urban district between 1894 and 1974, when it was merged into Eden District.The authority's area was coterminous with the civil parish of Penrith although when the council was abolished Penrith became an unparished area....
through Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
to Cockermouth
Cockermouth
-History:The Romans created a fort at Derventio, now the adjoining village of Papcastle, to protect the river crossing, which had become located on a major route for troops heading towards Hadrian's Wall....
in 1865; and the line to Lakeside
Lakeside, Cumbria
Lakeside is a small settlement at the south end of Windermere, England. Now in the English county of Cumbria, before county reorganisation of 1974 it was in Lancashire, as part of the region known as Furness...
at the foot of Windermere
Windermere (lake)
Windermere is the largest natural lake in England. It is a ribbon lake formed in a glacial trough after the retreat of ice at the start of the current interglacial. It has been one of the country’s most popular places for holidays and summer homes since the arrival of the Kendal and Windermere...
in 1869. The railways, built with traditional industry in mind, brought with them a huge increase in the number of visitors, thus contributing to the growth of the tourism industry. Railway services were supplemented by steamer boats on the major lakes of Ullswater
Ullswater
Ullswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, being approximately nine miles long and 0.75 miles wide with a maximum depth of slightly more than ....
, Windermere, Coniston Water
Coniston Water
Coniston Water in Cumbria, England is the third largest lake in the English Lake District. It is five miles long, half a mile wide, has a maximum depth of 184 feet , and covers an area of . The lake has an elevation of 143 feet above sea level...
, and Derwent Water
Derwent Water
Derwentwater is one of the principal bodies of water in the Lake District National Park in north west England. It lies wholly within the Borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria....
.
Lake District National Park
The Lake District National Park is located in the north-west of England and is the largest of the English National Parks and the second largest in the United Kingdom. It is in the central and most-visited part of the Lake District....
in 1951 recognised the need to protect the Lake District environment from excessive commercial or industrial exploitation, preserving that which visitors come to see, without any restriction on the movement of people into and around the district. The M6 Motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...
helped bring traffic to the Lakes, passing up its eastern flank. The narrow roads present a challenge for traffic flow and, from the 1960s, certain areas have been very congested.
Whilst the roads and railways provided easier access to the area, many people were drawn to the Lakes by the publication of the Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells
Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells
A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells of the Lake District in northwest England...
by Alfred Wainwright
Alfred Wainwright
Alfred Wainwright MBE was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, published between 1955 and 1966 and consisting entirely of reproductions of his manuscript, has become the standard reference work to 214 of the fells of the...
. First published between 1952 and 1965, these books provided detailed information on 214 peaks across the region, with carefully hand-drawn maps and panoramas, and also stories and asides which add to the colour of the area. They are still used by many visitors to the area as guides for walking excursions, with the ultimate goal of bagging
Peak bagging
Peak bagging is an activity in which hillwalkers and mountaineers attempt to reach the summit of some collection of peaks, usually those above some height in a particular region, or having a particular feature.Peak bagging can be distinguished from highpointing...
the complete list of Wainwrights. The famous guides are being revised by Chris Jesty to reflect changes, mainly in valley access and paths.
Since the early 1960s, the National Park Authority has employed rangers to help cope with increasing tourism and development, the first being John Wyatt, who has since written a number of guide books. He was joined two years later by a second, and since then the number of rangers has been rising.
The area has also become associated with writer Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
. A number of tourists visit to see her family home, with particularly large numbers coming from Japan.
Tourism has now become the park's major industry, with about 12 million visitors each year, mainly from the UK's larger settlements, China, Japan, Spain, Germany and the US Windermere Lake Steamers are Cumbria's most popular charging tourist attraction with about 1.35 million paying customers each year, and the local economy is dependent upon tourists. The negative impact of tourism has been seen, however. Soil erosion, caused by walking, is now a significant problem, with millions of pounds being spent to protect over-used paths. In 2006, two Tourist Information Centre
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...
s in the National Park were closed.
Cultural tourism is becoming an increasingly important part of the wider tourist industry. The Lake District's links with a wealth of artists and writers and its strong history of providing summer theatre performances in the old Blue Box of Century Theatre are strong attractions for visiting tourists. The tradition of theatre is carried on by venues such as Theatre by the Lake
Theatre by the Lake
Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, Cumbria, England is situated on the shores of Derwentwater in one of the most picturesque locations in the Lake District. It opened in 1999, replacing the old Blue Box Touring Theatre, and was made possible by an Arts Council Lottery Fund Grant...
in Keswick with its Summer Season of six plays in repertoire, Christmas and Easter productions and the many literature, film, mountaineering, jazz and creative arts festivals.
Literature and art
The Lake District is intimately associated with English literatureEnglish literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...
was the first to bring the region to attention, when he wrote a journal of his Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
in 1769, but it was William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
whose poems were most famous and influential. Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a poem by William Wordsworth.It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, came across a "long belt" of daffodils...
", inspired by the sight of daffodils on the shores of Ullswater, remains one of the most famous in the English language. Out of his long life of eighty years, sixty were spent amid its lakes and mountains, first as a schoolboy at Hawkshead
Hawkshead
Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in the Cumbria, England. It is one of the main tourist honeypots in the South Lakeland area, and is dependent on the local tourist trade...
, and afterwards living in Grasmere
Grasmere
Grasmere is a village, and popular tourist destination, in the centre of the English Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake, and is associated with the Lake Poets...
(1799–1813) and Rydal Mount
Rydal Mount
Rydal Mount is a house near Ambleside in the Lake District. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 to his death in 1850....
(1813–50). Wordsworth, Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
and Southey
Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...
became known as the Lake Poets
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review...
.
The poet and his wife lie buried in the churchyard of Grasmere and very near to them are the remains of Hartley Coleridge
Hartley Coleridge
David Hartley Coleridge was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His sister Sara Coleridge was a poet and translator, and his brother Derwent Coleridge was a distinguished scholar and author...
(son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
), who himself lived for many years in Keswick, Ambleside and Grasmere. Robert Southey
Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...
, the Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
and friend of Wordsworth, was a resident of Keswick for forty years (1803–43), and was buried in Crosthwaite
Crosthwaite
Crosthwaite is a small village located in the Parish of Crosthwaite and Lyth, Cumbria, UK.-Village Hall:The Argles Memorial Halll was built in 1931 on land donated from the local landowners...
churchyard. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived for some time in Keswick, and also with the Wordsworths at Grasmere. From 1807 to 1815 John Wilson
John Wilson (Scottish writer)
John Wilson of Ellerey FRSE was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, the writer most frequently identified with the pseudonym Christopher North of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine....
lived at Windermere. Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
spent the greater part of the years 1809 to 1828 at Grasmere, in the first cottage which Wordsworth had inhabited. Ambleside, or its environs, was also the place of residence both of Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold
Dr Thomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
, who spent there the vacations of the last ten years of his life and of Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau was an English social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist....
, who built herself a house there in 1845. At Keswick, Mrs Lynn Linton (wife of William James Linton
William James Linton
William James Linton was an English-born American wood engraver, landscape painter, political reformer and author of memoirs, novels, poetry and non-fiction.- Birth and early years :...
) was born, in 1822. Brantwood
Brantwood
Brantwood is a country house in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people, including John Ruskin. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Ruskin...
, a house beside Coniston Water, was the home of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
during the last years of his life. His assistant W. G. Collingwood
W. G. Collingwood
William Gershom Collingwood, was an author, artist, antiquary and Professor of Fine Arts at Reading University....
the author, artist and antiquarian lived nearby, and wrote Thorstein of the Mere, set in the Norse period.
In addition to these residents or natives of the Lake District, a variety of other poets and writers made visits to the Lake District or were bound by ties of friendship with those already mentioned above. These include Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...
, Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson , diarist, was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England.He was articled to an attorney in Colchester. Between 1800 and 1805 he studied at various places in Germany, and became acquainted with nearly all the great men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried...
, Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
, John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
, Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
, Felicia Hemans
Felicia Hemans
-Ancestry:Felicia Heman's paternal grandfather was George Browne of Passage, co. Cork, Ireland; her maternal grandparents were Elizabeth Haydock Wagner of Lancashire and Benedict Paul Wagner , wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool. Family legend gave the Wagners a Venetian origin;...
, and Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey was an English poet and self-educated Egyptologist. He was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England.-Biography:...
.
During the early 20th century, the children's author Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
was in residence at Hill Top
Hill Top, Cumbria
Hill Top is a 17th-century house in Near Sawrey near Hawkshead, in the English county of Cumbria. It is an example of Lakeland vernacular architecture with random stone walls and slate roof...
Farm, setting many of her famous Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit
Peter Rabbit is a fictional anthropomorphic character in various children's stories by Beatrix Potter. He first appeared in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. Spinoff merchandise includes dishes, wallpaper, and dolls...
books in the Lake District. Her life was made into a biopic film, starring Renée Zellweger
Renée Zellweger
Renée Kathleen Zellweger is an American actress and producer. Zellweger first gained widespread attention for her role in the film Jerry Maguire , and subsequently received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her roles as Bridget Jones in the comedy Bridget Jones's Diary ...
and Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
. Arthur Ransome
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...
lived in several areas of the Lake District, and set a number of his Swallows and Amazons series of books, published between 1930 and 1947, in a fictionalised Lake District setting. So did Geoffrey Trease
Geoffrey Trease
Geoffrey Trease was a prolific writer, publishing 113 books between 1934 and 1997 . His work has been translated into 20 languages...
with his five Black Banner school stories (1949–56), starting with No Boats on Bannermere
No Boats on Bannermere
No Boats on Bannermere is a 1949 children's novel by Geoffrey Trease, and the first of his five Bannerdale novels. They are school stories set in Cumberland, in the Lake District.- Plot summary :...
.
The novelist Sir Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...
lived at "Brackenburn" on the lower slopes of Catbells
Catbells
Catbells is a fell in the English Lake District in the county of Cumbria. It has a modest height of but despite this it is one of the most popular fells in the area. It is situated on the western shore of Derwent Water within of the busy tourist town of Keswick...
overlooking Derwent Water from 1924 until his death in 1941. Whilst living at "Brackenburn" he wrote The Herries Chronicle detailing the history of a fictional Cumbrian family over two centuries. The noted author and poet Norman Nicholson
Norman Nicholson
Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson OBE, , was an English poet, known for his association with the Cumberland town of Millom...
came from the south-west Lakes, living and writing about Millom
Millom
Millom is a town and civil parish on the estuary of the River Duddon in the southwest of Cumbria, England. The name is Cumbrian dialect for "At the mills". The town is accessible both by rail and an A class road...
in the twentieth century – he was known as the last of the Lake Poets
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review...
and came close to becoming the Poet Laureate.
Writer and author Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...
was brought up in the region and has used it as the setting for some of his work, such as his novel A Time to Dance, later turned into a television drama.
The Lake District has been the setting for crime novels by Reginald Hill
Reginald Hill
Reginald Charles Hill is an English crime writer, and the winner in 1995 of the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.- Biography :...
, Val McDermid
Val McDermid
Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of suspense novels starring her most famous creation, Dr. Tony Hill.-Biography:...
and Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards (author)
Kenneth Martin Edwards, commonly known as Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, critic and solicitor.- Biography :...
. The region is also a recurring theme in Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
's 1926 novella The Torrents of Spring
The Torrents of Spring
The Torrents of Spring is a novella written by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1926. Hemingway's first long work, it was written as a parody of Sherwood Anderson...
and features prominently in Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
's Amsterdam
Amsterdam (novel)
Amsterdam is a 1998 novel by British writer Ian McEwan. It is a morality tale revolving around a newspaper editor and a composer. McEwan was awarded the 1998 Booker Prize for the novel.-Summary:...
, which won the 1998 Booker Prize.
Film director Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
lived in the Keswick/Borrowdale area until 2007 and used it in films such as Tommy
Tommy (film)
Tommy is a 1975 British musical film based upon The Who's 1969 rock opera album musical Tommy. It was directed by Ken Russell and featured a star-studded cast, including the band members themselves...
and Mahler
Mahler (film)
Mahler is a 1974 biographical film based on the life of composer Gustav Mahler. It was written and directed by Ken Russell for Goodtimes Enterprises, and starred Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler and Georgina Hale as Alma Mahler...
.
Some students of Arthurian lore identify the Lake District with the Grail kingdom of Listeneise.
The former Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art was founded in 1884 by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley and his wife Edith as an evening class of repoussé‚ metalwork in the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, just outside Keswick, Cumbria....
at Keswick was started by Canon Rawnsley, a friend of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
.
Nomenclature
A number of words and phrases are local to the Lake District and are part of the Cumbrian dialectCumbrian dialect
The Cumbrian dialect is a local English dialect spoken in Cumbria in northern England, not to be confused with the extinct Celtic language Cumbric that used to be spoken in Cumbria. As in any county, there is a gradual drift in accent towards its neighbours...
, though many are shared by other northern dialects. These include:
- fellFell“Fell” is a word used to refer to mountains, or certain types of mountainous landscape, in Scandinavia, the Isle of Man, and parts of northern England.- Etymology :...
– from Old NorseOld NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
fjallr, brought to England by VikingVikingThe term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
invaders and close to modern Norwegian fjell and Swedish fjäll meaning mountain - howeHoweHowe from the meaning hill, knoll, or mound may refer to:*a tumulus , in particular a Bowl barrow.Places in the United Kingdom:*Howe, North Yorkshire*Howe, Norfolk*Maeshowe, Orkney*Duggleby Howe, East Yorkshire...
– place name from the Old NorseOld NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
haugr meaning hill, knoll, or mound - tarnTarn (lake)A tarn is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn. A corrie may be called a cirque.The word is derived from the Old Norse word tjörn meaning pond...
– a word that has been taken to mean a small lake situated in a corrieCirqueCirque may refer to:* Cirque, a geological formation* Makhtesh, an erosional landform found in the Negev desert of Israel and Sinai of Egypt*Cirque , an album by Biosphere* Cirque Corporation, a company that makes touchpads...
, a local phrase for any small pool of water. The word is derived from the Old NorseOld NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
and Norwegian word tjærn - Yan Tan TetheraYan Tan TetheraYan Tan Tethera is a sheep counting rhyme traditionally used by shepherds in Northern England. Until the Industrial Revolution, the use of traditional number systems was common among shepherds, especially in the dales of the Lake District. The Yan Tan Tethera system was also used for counting...
– the name for a system of sheep counting which was traditionally used in the Lake District. Though now rare, it is still used by some and taught in local schools. - Heaf (a variant of heftHeftHeft and similar can mean:*Robert G. Heft, a designer of the 50-star and 51-star versions of the USA flag*HEFT, the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike...
), the "home territory" of a flock of sheep.
See also
- Geology of EnglandGeology of EnglandThe Geology of England is mainly sedimentary. The youngest rocks are in the south east around London, progressing in age in a north westerly direction. The Tees-Exe line marks the division between younger, softer and low-lying rocks in the south east and older, harder, and generally a higher relief...
- Geology of the United Kingdom
- Grizedale ArtsGrizedale ArtsGrizedale Arts is a contemporary arts residency and commissioning agency in the central Lake District in rural Northern England. It conducts cultural projects locally, nationally and internationally...
- Kirkby MoorKirkby MoorKirkby Moor is a poorly defined moorland area in southern Cumbria, England, named after the village of Kirkby-in-Furness, but stretching both sides of the A5092 road, and thus spanning the border of the Lake District National Park...
- National parks (Scotland)
- Peak District National Park
- The Fell & Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District
- Yorkshire DalesYorkshire DalesThe Yorkshire Dales is the name given to an upland area in Northern England.The area lies within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire, though it spans the ceremonial counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Cumbria...
- Recollections of the Lake PoetsRecollections of the Lake PoetsRecollections of the Lake Poets is a collection of biographical essays written by the English author Thomas De Quincey. In these essays, originally published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine between 1834 and 1840, De Quincey provided some of the earliest, best informed, and most candid accounts of the...
Further reading
- Hollingsworth, S. '"The Geology of the Lake District: a review", Proc. Geologists Assoc., 65 (Part 4) 1954
- Moseley, F. Geology of the Lake District, Yorkshire Geologic
- Lake District Tours, A Collection of Travel Writings and Guide Books in the Romantic Era in 6 vols., edited by Tomoya Oda, Eureka Press, 2008.