Things to do in the lakeland villages

Most of the lakeland villages offer superb landscapes and are surrounded by the most beautiful countryside in the Lake District, so if you want to get off the beaten track and explore the lesser-known areas of the Lake District, you will find plenty of things to do in the villages.

Rosthwaite is a tiny village in Borrowdale, outstandingly well placed for walkers, who can choose between serious expeditions at the head of Borrowdale and gentler excursions through the Stonethwaite valley to Grasmere, along Langstrath to Langdale, or across Grange Fell to the unspoilt hamlet of Watendlath. The village itself, sited on The How, a rocky knoll above the flat valley floor of the River Derwent, which is liable to flood hereabouts, has inns, a shop and a number of pleasant stone cottages.

Rydal and William Wordsworth

Rydal is an attractive little settlement in its own right, and it owes its fame to its Wordsworth connection. The poet lived almost half his life at Rydal Mount, from 1813 to 1850, and the house is inundated with summer visitors, who come to see the period furniture and the garden, laid out as Wordsworth knew it. They also come to see Dora's Field, behind Rydal church (an u-nprepossessing edifice dating from 1824) the field still sports a host of daffodils in spring, and is carefully tended by the National Trust.

Rydal Hall, along the lane from the poet's house, is mainly of the seventeenth century though with Victorian additions; the Park is the venue for Rydal sheepdog trials in August.

Rydal Water is the smallest of the lakes and has a maximum depth of only about 18m (60ft). Nevertheless, it is attractive and accessible, and it is relatively easy for lakeshore walkers to escape the busy A591 by taking a footpath leading around the southern shores of the lake onto the lower slopes of Loughrigg Fell.

At the eastern end of the lake stone steps lead up a rocky knoll to Wordsworth's Seat, reportedly the great man's most loved viewpoint. To see the lake in its wider setting a walk along Sweden Bridge Lane from Ambleside is highly recommended.

St John's in the Vale has a number of features of interest, notably the view of Blencathra from its southern end, the Castle Rock of Triermain now a noted haunt of rock climbers, but also the setting for Sir Walter Scott's The Bridal of Triermain and reputedly the site of the Green Chapel in the medieval poem Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight and the finely situated dale chapel on the northern shoulder of High Rigg, to the west of St John's Beck.

Sawrey and Beatrix Potter

Sawrey consists of two settlements, Near and Far. Far Sawrey, closest to the Windermere ferry, is unremarkable, but at Near Sawrey is Hill Top Farm. This was the home of Beatrix Potter, and the surrounding countryside clearly influenced th'e 'Peter Rabbit' series of children's books which she wrote and illustrated.

The house, with its attractive and carefully preserved interior, is open from Easter to November, and is in the ownership of the National Trust, as is the adjacent and very comfortable pub, the Tower Bank Arms, which makes a guest appearance in The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck.

Scafell the Lake District

Scafell is the second highest mountain in England, but though it is physically very close to the highest, Scafell Pike, it is separated from it by the dramatic col of Mickledore, and there is no direct route for walkers between the two summits. The summit of Scafell is set on a fairly level plateau, and there are few items of interest in the near vicinity: the highest point is marked only by a cairn of no great distinction and Foxes Tarn, second highest in the Lake District, is only a small pool.

The great glory of Scafell, however, is the tremendous cliff of naked rock on its northern face. Scafell Crag, scene of many of the early advances in the sport of rock climbing, and the lower Shamrock Buttress combine to provide an overwhelming sight. Between the two the rocky, slippery, steep gully known as Lord's Rake, the most famous scramblers' route in the district, makes its way from the screeladen bowl of Hollow Stones to the summit plateau. On the east and southeast there are still further crags, with Esk Buttress and Cam Spout Crag (the latter containing the waterfall of Cam Spout) dropping dramatically to the desolate upper Esk valley.

Scafell Pike

Scafell Pike, the highest land in England, has few of the subtleties of fells which may be of lesser height but can claim far greater beauty. Its summit plateau is an uncompromisingly barren mass of boulders and the summit itself, though inevitably very popular, has nothing more than a massive but derelict wall-shelter for a cairn.

As befits its status, it has a very wide view over the surrounding fells and westwards to the Irish Sea. The shortest route to the summit starts at Wasdale Head and climbs alongside the Lingmell Gill; better but longer alternatives come up from Borrowdale, along the Corridor Route, and from Langdale via Esk Hause and the shoulder of Great End; but surely the best of all starts at Brotherilkeld and traverses upper Eskdale before climbing the little known peak of Pen and reaching the summit plateau up the enclosed gully of Little Narrowcove.

Seathwaite, the only settlement of any real note in the Duddon valley (Dunnerdale), is a hamlet with farm cottages, a pub and a church which, whilst it has been overrestored, is still notable for one of its former curates, 'Wonderful Walker', made famous by his inclusion in Wordsworth's poem The Excursion. Nicholas Walker was curate here for 66 years, and also filled the jobs of farm labourer, teacher, and nurse as well as spinning wool and making clothes for his family.

Shap, between Penrith and Kendal, is a rugged village perched high on the bleak and inhospitable Shap Fell, that curse of travellers along the A6, main railway and, more recently and less noticeably, the M6. Shap is, of course, best known for its granite quarries, though these are some distance to the south of the village.

There is a considerable continuity of settlement in the area, with standing stones, cairns and the scanty remains of a stone circle (much of it destoyed by the building of the railway) in the vicinity. To the west are the substantial remains of Shap Abbey in the quiet valley of the River Lowther; the abbey was founded in 1150, but the massive tower was completed only just before the dissolution in 1540, and it forms the major survival.

Skiddaw, at 931m (3,053ft) the least elevated of the four Lakeland Threethousanders (fells of 3,000 ft or more), is also the easiest to climb, with bulky slopes running down southwards towards Keswick and eastwards to Skiddaw House. The tourist route over Latrigg and Jenkin Hill is very easy to follow and in truth a little tedious, though it does have the merit of including the outstanding viewpoint of Skiddaw Little Man, with its magnificent views along Borrowdale to the central fells. More exciting routes can be devised to the north and west, with Ullock Pike and Carl Side very worthwhile objectives. Skiddaw House was once a shepherd's cottage of exceptional remoteness, but is now a youth hostel.

Skiddaw Forest is a vast, bare and lonely area of spongy grassland and heather moorland which in medieval times was reserved as hunting country. Staveley is a large and somewhat non-descript village which lies astride the busy Kendal to Windermere road. At one time it was a minor market centre, with a charter granted in 1329, but Kendal gradually usurped its trade. Later the village became a focal point for the bobbin industry of the southern Lake District, with five mills in the Kent and Gowan valleys in the mid-nineteenth century. A minor road from Stave ley follows the River Kent upstream past the diatomite works near Millrigg to the hamlet of Kentmere. 19.Lakes District hotels

Lakes District hotels are among the most popular in Cumbria, and hot tub hotels and spa hotels in Windermere and Bowness attract visitors from all over the world. Some of the beautiful villages of the Lake District, which are well worth visiting include:



Stonethwaite is a delightful hamlet in the side valley of the same name near Rosthwaite in Borrowdale. The classic view of the Stonethwaite valley is indeed from the road between Rosthwaite and Seatoller, with the notably steep and rocky western face of Eagle Crag closing the view up the valley. The two streams contributing to the Stonethwaite Beck are the Langstrath Beck and Greenup Gill; at their confluence is Smithymire Island, where the monks of Fountains Abbey smelted iron ore at a primitive bloomery. An ancient packhorse route runs along Stonethwaite and over Greenup Edge, connecting Borrowdale and Grasmere.

Sty Head, on the walkers' route between Wasdale and Borrowdale and an intermediate objective of routes to Scafell Pike and Great Gable, soon becomes familiar to regular walkers in the Lake District. So important a route is it that there was a proposal to drive a motor road over the Sty Head Pass in the late nineteenth century; fortunately this was successfully resisted. Sty Head Tam has a reedy shoreline which indicates that it was once much larger.

Swinside is the name of a wooded hill and hamlet in the lower reaches of the Newlands valley. The hill is prominent in views from the fells making up the Newlands round; from Dale Head it appears as a dark green shadow in front of the bulky Skiddaw. The hamlet consists of little more than a farm and an excellent inn on the road from Portinscale to Stair and, across Newlands Hause, Buttermere.

Tarn Haws, artificially created in the nineteenth century by damming a stream passing through a marshy valley, is now one of the most famous and popular tourist destinations in the country, and few regular visitors to the Lake District will have been able to resist the temptation to include the easy walk around the tam in their itinerary. The car parks are expensive but usually full, and the pressure on the paths is such that repair work is constantly needed to combat the problems of erosion.

The tarn itself is picturesque, but it comes into its own as a foreground for marvellous views of both the Helvellyn range and the Langdale Pikes. Thirlmere has belonged since 1879 to the Manchester Corporation Water Works, and its water, suitably treated south of Dunmail Raise, still travels 150km (95 miles) south to meet the needs of Manchester.

Most of the catchment area is forested, though there are still some tenanted farms, and it is only within the last few years that proposals for public access and improvement of what was once an unimaginatively planted landscape have come to the fore. Some 2,000 acres have been planted with conifers since 1908.

By far the best plan for those wishing to see the reservoir at its best is to take the road along the west shore, from where there are a number of access points, together with forest trails at Launchy Gill and a number of footpaths across to Watendlath.

Thornthwaite Forest occupies much of the low fell country on either side of the Whinlatter Pass, the relatively easy pass between Lorton and Braithwaite, and although much of the planting pays little attention to the landscape as in the blocks of conifers below Grisedale Pike and Hopegill Head there are encouraging signs that the Forestry Commission is mending its ways and seizing the opportunity provided by clear felling to enhance the landscape with its planting.

The forest also includes outliers such as Dodd, the little fell on the side of Skiddaw, where there is an excellent forest walk. At the summit of the Whinlatter Pass there is a very good visitor centre with displays, audiovisual presentations and bookshop inside and forest trails and picnic areas outside.

Threlkeld is a large village, formerly dependent on the mines nearby at Gategill and Woodend and still concerned with quarrying, between Keswick and Penrith. As such it is well situated for exploration of the northern fells and has easy access to central Lakeland, yet it is far from overrun by tourists. The former open field, covering 14 acres, can be traced near the River Glenderamackin. In the village itself the church dates only from 1777 and the pubs are older: the Horse and Farrier has the date 1688 over the door and was the place where Wordsworth and De Quincey took afternoon tea every Tuesday when Wordsworth was making regular trips from Grasmere to Penrith on postal business.

Tarver, a hamlet south of Coniston at the junction of the roads to Broughton and Ulverston, has access to a pleasant walk along the shore of Coniston Water and also, from Torver High Common, one of the best overall views of the Coniston fells, with Dow Crag and the Old Man of Coniston to the forefront. There is a profusion of cairns, possible stone circles and other prehistoric earthworks on Torver High Common and the adjacent Little Arrow Moor.

Troutbeck is one of the show villages of the Lake District, with well over a dozen seventeenth and early eighteenth-century statesman farmhouses. The village straggles for over a mile along a shelf above the Trout Beck valley, with clusters of dwellings around a number of wells from which communal water supplies were obtained. These clusters are connected by a bewildering array of lanes, tracks and paths, re-emphasising the scattered nature of the village. The focus of attention for most people is the National Trust property at Town End, the farmhouse of the Browne family from the time it was built in 1623 until it came into the care of the NT some 320 years later. A classic example of a statesman farmhouse, with a marvellously authentic interior, Town End should be on every itinerary, both for its architectural style, with cylindrical chimneys, slate roof, mullioned windows, and (around the back) a spinning gallery, and for the details of its interior, with cheese press, mangle and wooden washing machine amongst the exhibits.

Ullswater is a particularly attractive lake because of the variety of scenery encompassed in its twisting course from the head of the lake in the mountains near Patterdale to the sylvan beauty of the lower reaches around Pooley Bridge. Incomparably the best way to see it is by steamer along the length of the lake from Glenridding Pier to Pooley Bridge, with an intermediate stop at Howtown on the east shore. The main road along the west shore has a number of parking places and passes Gowbarrow Park (with the waterfall of Aira Force near at hand) and Glencoyne, but motorists are better served by the narrow road along the east shore, passing several secluded bays thick with sailing craft in summer on the way to Howtown and Martindale.

An easy walk from Martindale new church leads to the top of Hallin Fell, from where there is an excellent view of the lake. Walkers will be particularly keen to try the lakeside path from Patterdale below Place Fell to Howtown, often touted as the most picturesque lowlevel walk in the Lake District.

Things to do in Ulverston

Ulverston is a market town close to the southern boundary of the National Park which has seen better days but is nevertheless well worth seeing. The better days were at their height in the early nineteenth century, when iron ore, slate and locally manufactured goods were being exported direct from Ulverston, then linked to the sea by a short canal. The canal has silted up, largely because BarrowinFurness usurped Ulverston's role as a port, and now the town relies on its function as a market centre together with some tourist trade and a little manufacturing. Worth a visit are Hoad Hill, where the lighthouse is a memorial to Sir John Barrow, a son of Ulverston who was Under Secretary to the Admiralty for forty years, and the remains of the canal, including the basin, Brow Bridge lock and the pier at Canal Foot.

Wasdale Head has a spectacularly beautiful location, surrounded by some of the highest and best peaks in the Lake District and close to the shores of Wastwater, with the forbidding wall of the Wastwater Screes on the far side of the lake. The Norse were the first to settle here, taking on the back-breaking task of clearing the flat valley floor of the boulders brought down by all the winter torrents of preceding centuries. The fruits of their labours are the present valley pastures, divided by astonishingly thick walls containing all those boulders. Heaps of stones can also be found in the fields where there were just too many to put in the walls. The tiny church, with its bellcote and combined nave and chancel, dates from the early eighteenth century.

The hamlet, and in particular the Wasdale Head Inn, was mecca for early British rock climbing enthusiasts; now the inn caters generally for less energetic tourists. Wastwater is the deepest of the lakes, with its deepest parts below sea level, and it is also one of the most austere, with the forbidding wall of the Wastwater Screes along much of the southern shore and rocky margins around the remainder, so that there is a very limited fish population just trout and char. The compensation, however, is a series of stunning views up the lake to the mountains around Wasdale Head: Yewbarrow, Kirk Fell, Great Gable, Lingmell, Scafell Pike and Scafell.

There are delightful hamlets at each end of the lake Wasdale Head below the mountains, with the track up the dale to Sty Head very obvious on the lower slopes of Great Gable, and Nether Wasdale (Strands) below the foot of the lake.

Watendlath is a delectable though sometimes too crowded hamlet at the end of a very narrow road which leaves Borrowdale in the woods at Ashness Gate, crosses Ashness Bridge probably the most photographed bridge in the Lake District, with Derwentwater and Skiddaw as a splendid background and passes another good viewpoint for Derwentwater, the so-called Surprise View, before reaching the cluster of farmhouses and the shallow bowl containing Watendlath Tam.

The best way to reach Watendlath, avoiding all the problems of too many cars on the too narrow road, is to walk over Grange Fell from Rosthwaite; another bonus of this walk is the sudden bird's eye view of the hamlet from near the highest point of the walk. Windermere lake caters admirably for the more gregarious Lake District visitor; the seeker after solitude will have to travel further west to find a lake to suit. The town is similarly brash and vulgar by local standards, with nothing of great historical interest and a rash of gift shops near the station.

Windermere and Bowness Attractions

The attractions of the lake nevertheless go deeper than the steamers and pleasure craft which throng its relatively calm waters. It is the longest lake and as a result is a lake of many moods, with quiet bays and wooded islands adding to its beauty. The lake occupies two basins scooped out by the glaciers, with a shallower middle section around Belle Isle. Amongst the attractions around the shores of the lake are Fell Foot country park at its southern tip, the promenade at Bowness, the National Park visitor centre at Brockhole, the boat landings at Waterhead, the site of the Roman fort of Galava near Ambleside at the head of the lake, and, on the western shore, Wray Castle, the wooded Claife Heights, the ferry crossing from Far Sawrey back to Bowness, and the steamer pier and steam railway at Lakeside.

Winster is a hamlet at the head of the beautiful Winster Valley, which runs parallel to and east of Windermere. The old post office in the hamlet, a diminutive early seventeenth-century cottage, is famous and highly photogenic. Beyond Bowland Bridge the river flows between Cartmel Fell and the slopes of Whitbarrow Scar, a nature reserve with a good deal of exposed limestone pavement and a distinctive flora, before passing close to Witherslack on its way to Morecambe Bay. To the east of Whit barrow Scar is the Lyth Valley, famous for its damson blossom in May and hence for its damson jam and wine.

Wray Castle, close to the north-western shores of Windermere and only 5km (3 miles) from Ambleside, sometimes deceives the unwary with its medieval appearance, but in reality it is an extravagant Victorian pile constructed to the order of James Dawson, a Liverpool doctor, in the 1840s. It is set in attractively wooded grounds, with a lake frontage and paths leading to Claife Heights and Far Sawrey. The National Nature Reserve at Blelham Tam is nearby.

Yanwath, very close to the motorway, is a hamlet near Penrith with one building of real distinction, Yanwath Hall. John de Sutton erected a pele tower here in 1323, and this heavy-looking defensive structure survives as part of the present building, together with the hall, kitchen and courtyard added in the fifteenth century. The pele is a fine example of the characteristic Cumbrian defensive tower, with a tunnel-vaulted ground floor, mullioned and transformed first floor windows, and sandstone battlements with little comer turrets capping the whole structure.

Lake District holidays

The Lake District is one of the most popular resorts in the UK, and Lake District holidays are perfect for families and couples who want to spend time in one of England´s most beautiful regions. Most of the well-known towns in the Lake District, including Windermere, Keswick, Bowness and Coniston offer visitors a choice of quality hotels, boutique hotels and guesthouses to choose from, and some of the smaller villages are popular among visitors to the region.

Mardale retains a great deal of its appeal despite the intrusion of Haweswater reservoir in the 1930s, with the consequent loss of the delightful small village of Mardale Green. The dalehead is ringed with fine mountains, including Harter Fell with its forbidding, craggy northern face and High Street, the highest of these eastern fells. A number of excellent walks start from the car park at Mardale Head, notably those over the Gatescarth Pass to Longsleddale and the exquisite Nan Bield Pass to Kentmere, and up the long narrow ridge of Rough Crag and Long Stile to High Street.

The Nan Bield route passes Small Water, one of the very best of the district's tams, with a number of peculiar low wall shelters close to the water's edge, and runs below the corrie containing Blea Water, the deepest Lakeland tam. An alternative walk, also of considerable historic interest, is to follow the Old Corpse Road eastwards from Mardale over Selside End to Swindale and Shap.

Martindale is a secluded side valley on the eastern side of Ullswater, and also gives its name to a large area of common, much of it inaccessible to the public and the home since medieval times of an important herd of red deer. There are two churches in Martindale: the newer one, extravagantly Victorian but of no great architectural interest, is the starting point for the easy walk to the summit of Hallin Fell, but the older dale chapel is worth seeing. There was a chapel here in the fourteenth century, but the present simple structure, nave and chancel all in one, dates from 1633.

Moor Divock, a hive of prehistoric activity, is now an excellent spot for picnics or for easy walks along the wide grassy tracks one of them on the line of the Roman road from Brocavum, near Penrith, to Galava (Ambleside). Amongst the many prehistoric survivals are The Cockpit, by far the best preserved of seven stone circles identified in the vicinity, with 65 srones and a diameter of 36m (120ft); an unusual and rather impressive cairn circle; and the Cop Stone, a single remnant of yet another stone circle. There are many more burial mounds, and a variety of minor hills and hollows which are in many cases unexplained.

Muncaster Castle occupies an outstanding position in the lower Esk valley, with Muncaster Fell immediately behind and the blue line of the Scafell range in the distance. The house itself is essentially a Victorian country house tacked onto a pre-existing pele tower (dating from about 1325), with a second matching pele tower daring only from the l860s. Owned by the Pennington family since the thirteenth century, the castle is open to the public and perhaps most notable for its collection of antique furniture.

The grounds are a delight, with a superb array of landscaped gardens, including the Terrace Walk, ingeniously developed on the delta terrace of the glacial Lake Eskdale, and a collection of rhododendrons which is amongst the finest in Europe.

Mungrisdale is one of the classic moorland hamlets of Back 0' Skidda' counrry, on the very edge of the fells and overlooking the eerie plains stretching eastward towards Greystoke. Its whitewashed cottages and solid farmsteads are loosely clustered around the tiny church of St Kentigern, also known as St Mungo (hence the place-name). The church, with nave and chancel in one, dates from 1756 and has a threedecker pulpit and a 1617 Bible in a glass case. Above the River Glenderamackin stands the Mill Inn, traditional focal point of one of the most celebrated shepherds' meets.

Newby Bridge was clearly once at the extreme southern end of Windermere, since there is a complex series of end moraines here indicating the point at which the Windermere glacier rested for a while and deposited its debris. Now, however, the site of the village lies some distance from the lake, although a steam railway (the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway) connects village and lake. Tourism is the mainstay here, given the village's location at the junction of A590 and A592.

NewIands is a quite magnificent valley, deep, straight and heavily glaciated, and ringed by a number of fine fells, none better than Dale Head, so named because of its position closing the valley head. The valley was the focus of the pioneering mining exploits of the Society for the Mines Royal in the sixteenth century, and mine ruins or spoil heaps can still be seen high on the flanks of Dale Head and at Castle Nook and Goldscope. The focus of present-day settlement is the hamlet of Little Town and the nearby dale chapel, idyllically situated with Catbells as a green backcloth. Next to the chapel is the tiny building which formerly housed the school.

Nether WasdaIe, also known as Strands, is nothing more than a collection of farms, cottages and inns in the Irt valley below the outflow from Wastwater. There is a chapel with carvings from York Minster and ornate ceiling and panelling, but nothing else of great note except the scenery, which is stunning, especially from slightly higher ground on one of the many footpaths which lie close at hand. A particularly rewarding route lies across Irton Fell to Eskdale; another runs past Easthwaite to the foot of Wast water; and yet another makes for the base of the crags at Buckbarrow, with excellent views of Great Gable and the Scafell range.

The Old Man of Coniston

Old Man of Coniston. The Old Man, though it is only 803m (2,631ft) high and indeed overtops the next highest peak in the Coniston Fells, Swirl How, by a mere 30cm (1 ft) has a special place in the affections of fell-walkers, and as a consequence its higher reaches are rarely deserted. The summit, though part of a broad plateau, is perched above steep slopes overlooking the corrie tam of Low Water, and has a substantial cairn, wall shelter and column. The view along Coniston Water and over the estuaries feeding into Morecambe Bay is stunning.

Closer at hand are the marvellous, complex rock buttresses of Dow Crag across the wild upland tam of Goat's Water. On the flanks of the fell are extensive mine workings, particularly but not exclusively in Coppermines Valley; another of the Old Man's tarns, Levers Water, was enlarged to serve as a reservoir for the mines.

Patterdale is a village of no great interest which has one priceless asset, namely its magnificent setting at the head of Ullswater, with a series of delightful fells at hand. Notable is Place Fell, quite easily climbed and with a marvellous view over Ullswater to the Helvellyn range. Helvellyn itself is the most popular destination by far for walkers from Patterdale, with the main route to the mountain, via the famous arete of Striding Edge, heading up Grisedale.

Patterdale was described by H. H. Symonds in 1933, in Walking in the Lake District, as 'a most unlovely place, made of buses and booths and scrappy bits of architectural jumble', and few would quarrel with those sentiments today. St Patrick's Well, in a gabled recess by the roadside north of the village, supposedly had healing properties; the medieval chapel dedicated to him was rebuilt in 1853. The main event of the year is the sheepdog trials, held on the last Saturday in August.

Things to do in Penrith

Penrith is a fine medieval market town, sometimes very busy as locals and tourists jostle in the shopping streets but worth attention for its red sandstone castle, much extended by Richard III in a forlorn attempt to deter Scots border raiders, its church with thick tower walls dating from the Norman period but otherwise much altered in the eighteenth century, and its churchyard with a collection of Viking hogback tombstones and pre-Norman churchyard crosses.

There is a fine array of market places, including the site of the old cattle fairs at Great Dockray and the stock market in Sandgate. Near the centrally-situated churchyard is the former Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, a fine sandstone building which housed the school, founded in 1564, until 1915. The Town Hall is an adaptation of two town houses attributed to Robert Adam.

Pillar is an impressive mountain with an even more impressive feature on its northern flanks, namely Pillar Rock, an extravagant outcrop thrusting up some 150m (500ft) from the Ennerdale slopes of the fell and comprising a series of buttresses and gullies peppered with excessively difficult and exposed rock climbs, but providing spectators (notably those camped at Robinson's Cairn on the High Level Route to the summit of the mountain) with exceptional mountain scenery uncommonly close at hand. First climbed in 1826 by a local shepherd, John Atkinson, the Rock has had its devotees ever since, and John Wilson Robinson, after whom Robinson's Cairn is named, made more than a hundred ascents after first scaling Pillar Rock in 1882.

The summit of Pillar is surprisingly gentle and grassy after all this rock splendour, with numerous cairns and a ruined fence amongst the artefacts. Though the High Level Route is the most exciting way to the top, purists will probably insist on climbing Pillar from Ennerdale, though this involves a long walk up the dale (and just as long a return late in the day!). If you plan to climb Pillar, book a night or two in a Lake District hotel and enjoy a spa hotel or a hot tub hotel to soak away your aches and pains.

Hot tub hotels in the Lake District

If you are planning a trip to the Lake District, check out the fabulous choice of hot tub hotels and spa hotels in Windermere or Bowness, and a wide range of romantic hotels and boutique hotels in the Lake District.



Ullswater the Lake District

Ullswater, where the River Eamont begins its journey to the Eden valley. This was a former market centre, with a fish market and September sheep and cattle fair in the nineteenth century, and the site of the former market place is still betrayed by a bulge in the road in the centre of the village. Dunmallet Hill, overlooking the village, is a rounded hill surmounted by a hill-fort, probably of Iron Age date, where stone axes have been discovered. There is fishing and boating on Ullswater, and a steamer service along the lake, calling at Howtown and Glenridding Pier. The best short drive is that along the eastern side of the lake to Howtown and Martindale; the best short walk heads east to Moor Divock, with its prehistoric remains and excellent views of Ullswater, the Helvellyn fells and, well to the east, the long escarpment of the Pennines.

Portinscale, west of Keswick and near the exquisite Lingholm Gardens, and with the road to Newlands and along the west bank of Derwentwater to Grange threading its way through the village, is surprisingly unpretentious, though it caters for tourism and particularly for sailing enthusiasts. The place name, inexplicably, is derived fron the old Norse for 'the prostitute's dwelling'.

Ravenglass, nowadays a quiet village sited at the water's edge, has had a long and varied past, starting with the arrival of the Romans, whose fort (Glannaventa) is nowadays best represented by the bath-house known as Walls Castle. In medieval times efforts were made to promote the growth of Ravenglass into a fullyfledged market town, but these efforts foundered and although there are clues to be found in the wide main street, the annual fair is nowadays just a tourist attraction.

The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

Another magnet for the tourists is the Ravenglass & Eskdale narrow-gauge railway, originally a mineral line serving the iron ore mines near Boot but converted for passenger use and now a very pleasant way to travel up the lower Esk valley. Across the estuary from Ravenglass is the Drigg Dunes nature reserve.

Red Pike at Buttermere is a very popular mountain, often climbed from Buttermere village and easily recognised in views from across the valley because of the gash of red scree below its summit. Together with High Stile and High Crag it offers an exciting ridge walk between the Buttermere and Ennerdale valleys. The red scree exists because most of the fell is composed of an igneous intrusion, the Ennerdale granophyre. A notable element in the landscape is Bleaberry Tarn, couched in a deep corrie between Red Pike and High Stile. Robert Southey once described it as the crater of an extinct volcano, but it is of course glacial in origin.

The stream issuing from Bleaberry Tarn cascades over the lip of the corrie as a foaming torrent after heavy rain; this Sour Milk Gill deserves its name, and is capable of heavy destruction of the stream bed in winter.Red Pike (Wasdale) presents a bold face to the hamlet of Wasdale Head; its crags thrust upwards above reddish scree slopes cascading down into the U-shaped trough of Mosedale.

The higher slopes are very pleasant, consisting of a long ridge with rocky promontories culminating in a summit perched above the crags. Scoat Tam, in a green hollow to the left, and the familiar outlines of Scafell Pike and Scafell, separated by the col of Mickledore, are prominent features of the view from The Chair, a belvedere cunningly constructed around a rock outcrop south of the summit.

Red Pike is a major goal on the Mosedale Horseshoe, one of the finest ridge walks in the Lake District, and highly scenic ridges connect it to its neighbours, Pillar and Yewbarrow.

The Lake District places to go

Hesket Newmarket, nowadays a quietly attractive village, was (as its name implies) once a reasonably prosperous market town, as evidenced by the extremely large central green with a surviving market cross. Sheep and cattle fairs were held here until the early years of the nineteenth century, but the village was too far off the beaten track to sustain them in the railway age. Now the long village green provides the focus for a series of attractive limestone cottages and farmhouses; nearby Hesket Hall is more unusual architecturally, cubeshaped and with a circular roof.

High Street is both the highest point of the most easterly of the Lake District's main ridges and also the name of a Roman road which, somewhat improbably, traverses the same range of fells. The ridge is long and generally composed of smooth, grassy slopes, though there are impressive crags above Blea Water and a fine ridge rises from Mardale Head to the summit plateau; the summit itself is of no great interest.

The Roman road is still traceable in its entirety, coming up from the narrow Straits of Riggin dale and passing to the west of the summit on its way to the Trout Beck valley. The Mardale shepherds' meet was held annually on the summit plateau until 1835, with barrels of beer rolled up from the dale and wrestling and horseracing amongst the attractions (hence the alternative name of Racecourse Hill).

Honister Pass carries the road from Seatoller in Borrowdale to Buttermere and is especially picturesque as it descends Gatesgarthdale into the latter valley, with the crags of the High Stile fells prominently in view. At the top of the pass are buildings associated with Honister Quarries, which have been producing high-quality slate since at least 1634 and are still operating. The old toll road from Honister to Seatoller offers a pleasant alternative to the motor road for walkers, whilst those in pursuit of something more strenuous can tackle Dale Head, or follow the ridge southwards to Great Gable.

III Bell (Kentmere) is the central peak in a quite delightful little ridge which separates upper Kentmere from the Trout Beck valley. The lesser peaks are Froswick, to the north from where the ridge goes on to link up with the High Street fells and Yoke, better known for its craggy eastern slopes, culminating in Rainsborrow Crag. III Bell has a knobbly, corrugated summit plateau festooned with cairns, and makes an attractive destination from Troutbeck, though devious routes via the Garburn Road and Yoke, or Scot Rake (used by the Romans as part of their road from Penrith along the High Street ridge to Ambleside) and Froswick, are preferable to the unremitting toil of a direct ascenr.

Ireby was once a market town of some little pretension but no longer functions as such; the Thursday market and the annual fair, granted in 1237, were still flourishing more than four centuries later but have long since been abandoned. The burter cross and Moot Hall are now private houses and they, together with the market place, remain as reminders of the village's former importance. Ireby old church, some distance to the west, is a disused Norman chapel, and another deserted site in the vicinity is that of the Iron Age settlement at Aughertree.

Irton parish must be one of the most dispersed in the Lake District. The church stands alone on a slight hill commanding a good view of the Wasdale fells; in the churchyard is an excellent Anglian cross. Also in the parish is the hamlet of Santon Bridge, while Irton Fell is the first summit in the long ridge of Whin Rigg and IlIgill Head, best known for its northwest slopes, which form the Wastwater Screes, the famous backdrop to the district's deepest and most forbidding lake.

Things to do in Kendal

Kendal caters largely for the tourist nowadays, though it still has an important market and administrative function. The ruined castle, sited on a drumlin (a mound of glacial boulder clay) across the Kent valley, and the burgage plots, alleys and courtyards in the streets around the market place are the most significant reminders of its medieval functions, while the disused canal and the adjacent industrial quarter testify to its later growth. The parish church, Holy Trinity, has five aisles together with chapels to three local families, including the Pans Catherine Parr, who became the sixth wife of Henry VIII in 1543, was born in Kendal castle. There is an art gallery and museum at Abbot Hall, near the church, an annual festival of music and, in September, the Westmorland County Show.

Kentmere is the name of a hamlet, a dale, a reservoir and a minor fell, Kentmere Pike. The hamlet consists of a heavily restored church with a grey ash-lared tower, Kentmere Hall an amalgam of fourteenth-century pele tower and later farmhouse and a cluster of farmhouses and cottages above the River Kent. There is no pub: in a notorious case in the nineteenth century the Low Bridge Inn (now a private house) became the first pub in England to lose its licence as a result of drunkenness and immorality.

The dale, of which the hamlet is the focal point, is chiefly notable for the diatomite works which processes the clay from the bed of the former valley lake. The reservoir, in an attractive mountain setting, was built to regulate the flow of water to the mills much further down the Kent valley. Above the reservoir the old packhorse route from Kentmere to Mardale can be seen ascending the delightful though very steep Nan Bield Pass.

Keswick hotels

Keswick is a popular area for tourists in the Lake District, and you can find a wide choice of campsites, hotels, guesthouses and bed and breakfast accommodation in the area.

Keswick is much-maligned, but though it does suffer from the excesses of tourism it retains a good deal of character and interest. It began life late, obtaining its first market charter in the closing years of the thirteenth century and growing as a centre for miners from Newlands and Borrowdale and later as a woollen town. Now it functions purely as a tourist centre. The Moot Hall dates from 1813 and is now the information centre; Greta Hall is notable as the home for 40 years of the poet Robert Southey; and there are a number of alleyways, such as Packhorse Yard and Woolpack Yard, running down to the River Greta from the main street.

In King's Head Yard, Jonathon Otley, clockmaker turned amateur but gifted geologist, had his home. In Fitz Park is a small art gallery and museum, which contains manuscripts of the Lake poets, a scale model of the Lake District, and strange 'musical stones' which were played at Buckingham Palace in 1848.

Little Langdale suffers in comparison with its bigger brother but is justifiably popular with many; the road through the dale is far too popular in summer, congested with motorists travelling over the Wrynose Pass, with its twisting bends and steep gradients, or visiting Blea Tam in its idyllic location on a shelf between the two Langdales. The hamlet of Little Langdale is tiny, with just a pub, a school and a few cottages, but a lane on the left here leads to Slater Bridge, a marvellous bridge approached by a flagstoned causeway and spanning the Brathay on huge slate slabs.

Originally built by quarrymen needing to reach their work in the Wetherlam quarries, the bridge now caters for walkers bound for the Coniston Fells or Colwith Force. Little Langdale Tam is a disappointing and rather inaccessible sheet of water by Lake District standards. Behind Fell Foot Farm, owned by the National Trust, is a strange mound which might be a Viking 'thing mount' or meeting place.

Longsleddale is a fascinating dale which, by virtue of its peripheral location, is usually comparatively quiet. The dale head, above the picturesque hamlet of Sadgill, with its classically simple packhorse bridge over the turbulent River Sprint, is wild and rugged, with the Gatescarth Pass carrying an old trade route over to Mardale. Lower down the pele tower of Ubarrow Hall is the focus of interest. There are now no lakes in the dale, though the sites of a number which clearly existed in the immediate postglacial period can be discerned without too much difficulty.

Lorton consists of two settlements, High and Low, which together make up a village of considerable interest. There was once a good deal of industry here, based on water power from the River Cocker, and indeed the surviving Cockermouth brewery, Jennings, originated in the village; the village hall is on the site of the former maltings. Lorton Hall is a complex building of some interest, with traces of a fifteenthcentury pele tower, further medieval fragments, and seventeenthcentury additions incorporated in the present structure. The hall is said to be haunted by a woman carrying a lighted candle, and it has seen a variety of royal visitors, including Malcolm III of Scotland in the eleventh century and Charles II in 1653.

Loweswater, tucked away in a side valley with its outflow quickly swallowed up in Crummock Water, is a lovely little lake perhaps best approached from the roadside on its northern shore, though a relatively lightly used footpath threads its way through woodland on the opposite shore and is perhaps a pleasanter way to get to know the lake. Loweswater enjoys a close relationship with Mellbreak, a fell with dramatic crags and fine views d€lspite its lack of height. The 'village' of Loweswater, loosely centred on the church and the Kirkstile Inn, is very scattered but supports the Loweswater Show and a vintage car rally in the autumn.

Lowther estate is now best known as a country park with adventure playgrounds, assault course, jousting tournaments and the like, and the castle is a mere shell. Yet there has been a castle here since the thirteenth century, and the estate has been in the hands of the Lowthers during all that period. The ruined facade which is all that is left of the castle is a much more recent rebuilding, however, having been constructed in 1806-11 to the plans of Robert Smirke, architect of the British Museum.

The church of St Michael is the sole survivor of the former village of Lowther, its houses pulled down in the late seventeenth century by Sir John Lowther 'to enlarge his demesne, and open the prospect of his house, for they stood just in front of it'. Earthworks near the church indicate the former village street and the house sites. The villagers were relocated at Newtown, an estate village begun in 1683 which also housed a carpet factory. The church has a Victorian tower but an early medieval interior, and there is a strange Lowther family mausoleum in the churchyard.

Lake District attractions

Lake District attractions are among the best in England, and whether you are visiting to enjoy the countryside, or you want to spend time boating on the lakes or visiting a wide range of children´s attractions, including parks, museums and adventure playgrounds, you can find something for everyone in the Lake District.

Gowbarrow Park is a particularly interesting area on the northwestern shores of Ullswater. Originally a medieval deer park, Gowbarrow was planted in Victorian times with a variety of exotic trees, including Douglas fir and rhododendron, but it still retains its parkland atmosphere, with little rocky howes rising above the bracken.

Aira Force, most romantic of Lakeland waterfalls, lies in the deeply incised valley of the Aira Beck; the water crashes down spectacularly into an enclosed, wooded ravine. The eighteenth century hunting lodge of Lyulf's Tower, an extraordinary sight with its battlements, lies close to the shores of Ullswater here.

Grange-in-Borrowdale originated as the grange, or outlying farm, of Furness Abbey in the thirteenth century. Nowadays it is best known for its highly attractive bridge spanning the wide and shallow River Derwent. Just above the village are the Jaws of Borrowdale, where the valley becomes constricted and the river flows in a gorge between Castle Crag (its summit crowned by a hillfort) and Grange Fell, with the Bowder Stone, a glacial erratic, at its foot.

Grange-over-Sands, just outside the National Park, is a minor holiday resort with a promenade overlooking the muddy sands of Morecambe Bay. A highway crosses the sands from Kents Bank, near Grange, to the Lancashire coast, but the services of an experienced guide (appointed by the Duchy of Lancaster) are required by potential travellers, for knowledge of the tides, the river channels and the quick-sands is essential. A fine viewpoint above the town is the little hill known as Hamps Fell, which has an area of limestone pavement on its summit.

Things to do in Grasmere

Grasmere will need little introduction to many. Best visited outside the summer season or in the evening, after the crowds have dispersed, it is an attractive village which has come close to being overrun by commercial interests but still retains a measure of true charm.

Dove Cottage and William Wordsworth

The tourists come here, of course, mainly to see Dove Cottage, though this is well to the east of the village centre, at Town End. Wordsworth's home for nine years during the period when his talent was at its height, it is open to the public, as is a nearby barn converted into a museum. The simple graves of the poet and his wife are in the churchyard at Grasmere, on a site chosen by Wordsworth and close to the yew trees he planted. St Oswald's church, its exterior hidden beneath an ashlar coat but with some thirteenth-century work inside, is the scene of an annual rush bearing ceremony which originated because until the nineteenth century the floor of the church was composed of bare earth and was strewn with rushes.

The lake of Grasmere is some distance from the village but is easily approached on foot; the best view is from Loughrigg Terrace at the southern end. Grasmere sports, held on the Thursday closest to 20 August, are the biggest in the district, and include hound trailing, Cumberland wrestling and pole jumping as well as the Guides Race, one of the most famous of all the fell races.

Grasmoor is the highest of the northwestern fells, but does not often get the credit it deserves, largely because a number of the nearby peaks, such as Grisedale Pike, are rather more shapely. Nevertheless its western face, Grasmoor End, towers commandingly above Crummock Water, and the direct ascent from Lanthwaite Green is an unremittingly hard slog on unstable scree and over' bilberries and heathery rock outcrops. The summit is disappointing, consisting of a broad grassy plateau, though there is evidence of peri-glacial activity in the stone polygons and stone stripes which can appear after hard frosts.

There is an extensive view from the summit across the blue waters of Buttermere, Crummock Water and Loweswater to the High Stile range, with Helvellyn nd the Scafell range amongst the more distant peaks. The northern face of Grasmoor drops steeply over Dove Crags into the stony wastes of Gasgale Gill an abrupt transformation from the grassy summit scenes.

Great Gable, the fell chosen to be the symbol of the National Park, is best seen from Wasdale or from Lingmell, where the magnificent crags forming the Great Napes are displayed to full advantage. The best, though certainly not the easiest, way to the top also starts from Wasdale, ascending the ridge of Gavel Neese to the projecting rock known as Moses' Finger, then using the climbers' traverse under the Great Napes, scrambling up the scree shoot of Great Hell Gate and around the edge of Westmorland Crags, and finally traversing a bouldery plateau to the summit cairn and the nearby war memorial.of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club.

Amongst the astonishing, complex rock scenery of the Great Napes is the Napes Needle, scene of Walter Parry HaskettSmith's momentous rock climb in 1886, while on the northern face of the mountain is the great black wall of Gable Crag. A cave high on the crag was reputedly the refuge of Moses, a legendary whisky smuggler, whose route through the fells Moses' Trod can still be followed from Honister round the head of Ennerdale and across the slopes of Great Gable to Wasdale Head.

Great Langdale is one of the most popular of Lakeland valleys, with a wealth of interest from Elterwater to the head of the dale in the wild recesses of Mickleden and Oxendale. The Langdale Pikes dominate the views up valley, and they are usually climbed from the path starting behind the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. Stickle Tarn and Pavey Ark increase the scenic quality of this walk. The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel is the base for more serious expeditions by walkers bound for the majestic fells at the head of the valley notably Bowfell or for the Scafell range, and by rock climbers making for Gimmer and other major crags. High on the flanks of Pike 0' Stickle is the site of a Neolithic stone axe factory, the most important in the country. Amongst the other fells making up the impressive skyline at the head of the dale are Pike of Blisco and Crinkle Crags; a marvellous ridge walk connects the two.

The Lake District accommodation

You can find plenty of accommdation in the Lake District, including hotels, luxury hotels, guesthouses, romantic hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation in Windermere, Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside and throughout the region.

Grizedale Forest, acquired by the Forestry Commission in 1934, has been developed with the interests of forestry, amenity and recreation in mind, and in addition to the usual hardwood plantations it includes oak coppice woodland and open areas of fell and farmland. Areas of larch have been planted to allow the red deer, for which the area is renowned, to remain. The visitor centre, to the north of Satterthwaite, includes a wildlife mseum, information centre, a nature trail and, in a converted barn, the Theatre in the Forest.

Hardknott is a low fell which lends its name to the Hardknott Pass, the steepest and most tortuous of the drivers' routes in the district yet one which was used by the Romans for their road between the forts of Galava (Ambleside) and Glannaventa (Ravenglass). The substantial remains of the Roman fort at Hardknott, on a shoulder of the fell overlooking the delightful scenery of the Esk valley and also blessed with an outstanding view of the Scafell range across upper Eskdale, are outstanding and well worth the effort required to bring them underfoot.

The walls, carefully restored by the Department of the Environment, still stand to a height of several feet, and the four gateways one facing out directly onto a steep drop into Eskdale and therefore serving no practical purposeare very much in evidence, together with the principal buildings both inside the fort and, a little to the south, around the bath house. Some distance to the east is a level area, with a raised viewing platform, which was the Roman parade ground.

Hartsop, strictly speaking Low Hartsop, is best known for the exterior spinning galleries which decorate a number of the farmhouses in the hamlet. The galleries, dating from the seventeenth century, were the open platforms where local wool was spun before being sent to the woollen mills of Keswick, Kendal and elsewhere, and their survival preserves the evidence of a localised but important architectural tradition. Hartsop is also a good starting point for the exploration of the High Street ridge and for routes to Thornthwaite Crag, with its impressive summit monolith.

Haweswater reservoir, created in the 1930s to supply water to Manchester, at the cost of drowning the hamlet of Mardale Green and its venerable church, inn and farmhouses, is nobody's favourite. The ugly tidemark around the shoreline and the unattractive marshes at its head see to that, though there are some fine views across the reservoir to the High Street range. In times of drought the buildings of Mardale Green can still be seen. Hawkshead, though it has lost some of its former importance and can now claim only village status, has much to offer the visitor.

Clues to its more illustrious past include the church with its massive tower, a legacy of Hawkshead's days as a wool town, and Hawkshead Court House, a little outside the village, which was the grange farm of Furness Abbey during the monks' ascendancy in Furness. The centres of attraction now are the two squares, linked by a narrow alley, and the cobbled lanes and courtyards lined in some cases by overhanging buildings dating from the great rebuilding in the seventeenth century.

Hawkshead and William Wordsworth

Hawkshead Grammar School was where William Wordsworth was educated, and the school has been maintained much as he would have known it, with the original desks and benches. Above all the village should be visited for the views of the fells from the town, and especially from the churchyard.

Helvellyn has the reputation of being the most popular mountain in the Lake District, largely because of its accessibility from Grasmere and Patterdale rather than the intrinsic attractiveness of its summit or its western approaches. Its eastern face, however, is very different, with the two celebrated, narrow, and rocky aretes of Striding Edge and Swirral Edge separated by a deep corrie containing Red Tarn. Though Striding Edge can be dangerous in wintry conditions it is so popular that help is never far away, and it is undoubtedly an exhilarating way to the top of the mountain.

Hellvelyn the Lake District

At 950m (3, 118ft) Helvellyn is one of the four Lakeland Three-thousanders, but its summit is cluttered with cairns, most of them unnecessary, as well as shelters, a triangulation column and even two memorials one commemorating a dog which stayed with its dead master in 1855 and another the landing of an aeroplane on the flat summit ridge some seventy years later. Of the fourteen routes which converge on its summit the most celebrated is undoubtedly that over Striding Edge, though the route over Catstycam and Swirral Edge is almost as exciting.

Places to see in the Lake District

The Lake District is famous for its stunning scenery and breathtaking views over the lakes and fells. Lake District hotels offer tours and excursions of the area, which include many famous viewpoints and places of interest in the Lake District area.

Enjoy the well-known views along Borrowdale and across the lake to Causey Pike from Friar's Crag, and the sight of Blencathra across Derwentwater from near Brandlehow. More distant views of distinction include the very well-known shot from Ashness Bridge, on the road to Watendlath, with Derwentwater appearing in front of the green slopes of Skiddaw, and (a really wide-ranging and delightful view) Derwentwater and the green fields and woods of Borrowdale from the Grains Gill route to Great End or from the striking summit cairn of Glaramara, a much underrated mountain.

The lake itself, though 5km (3 miles) in length, is shallow, with a maximum depth of only 22m (72ft), and it is a good deal shallower than this in places, especially on the submarine ridges which run the length of the lake and at their highest form the islands which add so much to the charm of Derwentwater. St Herbert's Island, supposedly the hermitage of the eponymous saint, is the most southerly, while on Derwent Isle an eighteenth-century eccentric built a stone circle, church and fort.

Dunnerdale, the valley of the River Duddon, suffers in popularity because it has no lake and is somewhat inaccessible, but as a result its outstanding beauty can be savoured at leisure and in peace and quiet. Motorists are particularly well placed to seek out its attractions, for a good road follows the Duddon down from its source west of the Wrynose Pass to Cockley Beck and past Black Hall to Birks Bridge, a superb packhorse bridge high above a miniature gorge where the river flows through green pools between rock faces.

Through Seathwaite, where there are stepping stones over the river, the road continues past woods and little rocky knolls to Ulpha, a hamlet with church and school where the Eskdale road rises steeply onto Birker Moor. Finally the Duddon reaches the sea near BroughtoninFurness; the map indicates that the estuary of Duddon Sands, once famous for its salmon and cockles, is crossed by several tracks, but these are dangerous except to the experienced.

Egremont is a small town in the valley of the River Eden southeast of Whitehaven, with a wide main street and the scanty remains of a Norman castle, constructed of St Bees sandstone around 1135 as a defence against incursions from the Scots. The gatehouse, with intricate herringbone work, part of the Great Hall, and the outer walls and postern gate are the main survivals. Egremont owed its prosperity to iron ore, the first of its mines having been in existence by the late twelfth century (when it was presented as a gift to Holme Cultram Abbey). A highlight of the Egremont Crab Fair, held annually in September and a particularly boisterous event, is the World Championship Gurning Competition; gurning, of course, is the art of pulling a hideous face whilst wearing a horse collar.

Elterwater village, pleasantly situated at the entrance to Little Langdale, has an excellent pub and an attractive common popular for family picnics. To the north of the village is the site of the Elterwater gunpowder works, established in 1824 but closed a century later. The lake of Elterwater literally 'swan lake' to the Norse settlers is reedy, irregular and rather too small to capture the imagination; the waters of Great and Little Langdale (the Langdale Beck and River Brathay respectively) meet here.

Ennerdale Water is one of the most scenically pleasing of the lakes, though there will be many who have not had the pleasure of viewing it from, say, Kirkland, with the lake set between a foreground of meadowland and a distant view of mountains, with the jutting profile of Pillar Rock prominent on the higher slopes of its parent fell.

From the site of the former Anglers' Hotel, unnecessarily demolished at a time when there were fears that the level of the lake would be raised to provide further water for west Cumberland, it is possible to follow the lake shore below Angler's Crag and along the southern side of the lake to its head near Gillerthwaite. Cars are not allowed as far as here: the car park below Bowness Knott is the limit for motorised traffic.

A bridleway continues up the dale alongside the River Liza, however, passing through the muchcriticised and extensive Forestry Commission plantations. It is a long walk to the head of Ennerdale, a truly remote spot with just the Black Sail Hut youth hostel amongst the sheep pastures, but the mountain scenery here is superb, with Great Gable, Pillar and Steeple outstanding.

Eskdale, though it contains no lake and, at least in its most frequented parts, is a little way distant from the major mountains, is nevertheless a favourite dale of many. It is certainly a dale of contrasts, beginning with the origins of the Esk itself high on the rockstrewn slopes dividing Esk Pike and Great End, two of the district's loftiest mountains.

The infant Esk tumbles down into Great Moss, a wide flat bowl beneath Esk Buttress and the waterfall of Cam Spout, on the flanks of Scafell Pike and Scafell respectively. The site of a lake in late glacial times, Great Moss was later part of the monastic sheep pasture purchased by Furness Abbey in the thirteenth century; traces of the medieval boundary remain.

Below Esk Falls and the packhorse bridge at Throstle Garth (where the monks' sheepfold survives) is the Norse farm of Brotherilkeld, now owned by the National Trust and the venue of the Eskdale Show in late September. The mid valley, as far as Boot, offers superb riverside walks as the Esk passes under Doctor Bridge, dives through little gorges and ripples around the stepping stones next to St Catherine's chapel at Boot.

The Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway

Still lower down the valley the attractions include the Ravenglass & Eskdale narrow-gauge railway, Dalegarth Force in Stanley Ghyll, Muncaster Fell and, as the river nears the Irish Sea, Muncaster Castle and the village of Ravenglass, which overlooks the combined estuaries of the Esk, Irt and Mite.

Esthwaite Water, in its sylvan, gentle setting, presents a marked contrast to the rugged, brooding lakes which are often regarded as characteristic of the Lake District. From the southeast there is a fine view across the reedy, low lying lake to the Langdale Pikes. Esthwaite Water, as befits a lowland lake in a farming area, supports a wide variety of fauna and flora, with trout, perch, pike, and roach amongst its fish. At the head of the lake, close to Hawkshead, is Priest Pot, a National Nature Reserve which was formerly part of Esthwaite Water but is now separated from the lake by an area of silty fen.

Fairfield is the centrepiece of a famous fell walk, the Fairfield Horseshoe, which is a popular and highly enjoyable excursion from Rydal or Ambleside. Fairfield itself is a mountain of contrasts, with smooth grassy slopes falling away into Rydale to the south, but rough scree, jagged rock precipices and tremendous deep, dark corries adorning the northern face of the fell and its immediate neighbours. So attractive is this northern aspect that Fairfield is best climbed from Patterdale, along Deepdale and under the towering crags of Greenhow End.

Glaramara, the highest of a complex series of fells dividing the upper reaches of Borrowdale from Langstrath, has an Old Norse name of obscure meaning, though part of the word appears to mean 'an abrupt descent or chasm', which could refer to the excellent hanging valley of Comb Gill below the summit to the north. Amongst the other features of the fell are the tremendous view north from its massive slmmit cairn along Borrowdale to Derwentwater and Skiddaw, and the strange (and somewhat dangerous) caves high on the side of the Comb Gill valley. The ridge walk from Glaramara to Allen Crags is delightful, with a number of tiny tarns forming perfect foregrounds for shots of the distant Langdale Pikes.

Glenridding, now to a large extent a place of hotels and tourist shops, was previously a mining village, its inhabitants dependent for their livelihood on the Greenside lead mine, which was so prosperous in the nineteenth century that the mining company owned more than fifty of the terraced houses in the village. The mine finally closed down in 1962, though by then it had had to survive some difficult times, notably when its reservoir (Keppelcove Tarn) broke its banks during a storm in 1927 and unleashed a torrent which destroyed bridges, buildings and livestock.

Lake District villages

Broughton in Furness

Broughton-in-Furness is a small market town in lower Dunnerdale, with a spacious market place created in the late eighteenth century, about a hundred years after the market was first established there. There is still a market on Tuesdays, but there is little else to give the feel of a town, and the trade brought by the local woollen and woodland industries has completely disappeared. The curious will seek out the plaque commemorating the laying out of the market square, the obelisk to John Gilpin, who provided the necessary land, the clock which survives from the same period, and Broughton Tower, the seat of the Broughton family from late Saxon days.

Burnmoor, a low plateau separating Wasdale and Eskdale, is a pleasant spot for a short walk from the hamlet of Boot, climbing alongside the Whillan Beck and then along the Old Corpse Road along which the dead were carried from Wasdale Head to St Catherine's chapel at Boot in the days before Wasdale Head's little chapel was licensed for burials.

Amongst the items of interest are an old mill site in the Whillan Beck valley, burial mounds to the west of the path, and Burnmoor Tarn, one of the larger tarns in a desolate setting, with Yewbarrow and the fells of the Mosedale Horseshoe peeping over the horizon. By the tarn there is a former hunting lodge, a remote and forbidding building; more cheerful are the ponies which frequent the moor.

Buttermere things to do

is the name of a lake, a dale and a small village. The lake is one of awesome beauty, perfectly proportioned in a mountain bowl below the High Stile range, Haystacks, Fleetwith Pike (especially well seen from across the lake, with its spinal ridge rising inexorably at the head of the valley) and Robinson. The circular lakeside walk is easy, restful and full of superb views. From the chapel above the village the harmony of lake and fell can be studied at leisure: above the lake and the wooded lower slopes are considerable corries such as Birkness Comb and Bleaberry Comb, savage crags and, issuing from hanging valleys, cascading streams such as Sour Milk Gill opposite the village. Buttermere village is a little disappointing, though there is a chapel, a post office, a couple of hotels one of them, the Bridge, formerly known as the Victoria, began life as a corn mill and a cluster of farm buildings.

Caldbeck

Caldbeck is a fascinating large village well off the beaten track on the northern fringes of the National Park, best known for its association with the huntsman John Peel. Above the village there is a deep, narrow limestone gorge (The Howk) in which there was formerly a bobbin mill, destroyed by fire, and closer to the village itself the derelict buildings of Caldbeck woollen mill serve as a further reminder of the industrial past of the area. John Peel, born in 1776, is buried in the churchyard; the song 'D'ye ken John Peel' was written by his friend John Woodcott Graves.

Calder Abbey is pleasantly located in the valley meadows of the River Calder, but it has not always been so peaceful here, and the monks were twice forced to flee by Scottish raiders in the twelfth century. The ruins of the abbey, founded by the order of Savigny in 1134 and later under Cistercian control, are considerable but are not open to the public. The tower stands to half its original 40m (130ft) height, and five bays of the north aisle survive, together with the transept arches and part of the chancel.

The monks played a considerable part in the agricultural colonisation of the wild, remote Copeland Forest area, and the remains of their packhorse bridge (Matty Benn's Bridge) higher up the Calder valley offer just one indication of their activity in this area.

Carrock Fell, which contrasts starkly with many of its neighbours in Back 0' Skidda' country, is a geological oddity, based on volcanic gabbro and granophyre rather than the Skiddaw Slates which have produced the smoother surrounding fells. The fell stands right at the northeastern edge of the Lake District and there are substantial views across the Caldew plain and the Eden valley, but the twin treasures of the fell are smaller scale: a hill fort and a mining venture.

The surprisingly extensive remains of the hill fort decorate the summit plateau; the walls still stand to a height of over a metre (3 to 4 feet), though there are gaps in places which represent either gateways or the slighting of the fort by the Romans. The fort, the largest in Cumbria, covers about five acres and appears to have been thrown up in the Iron Age. The mining venture is much more recent, having been started as recently as 1854.

It was particularly successful during World War I, when its tungsten ores were in great demand, but subsequent exploitation has been sporadic, although more than twenty minerals have been identified in the vicinity of the mine. A minor road from Mosedale can be taken by those wishing to explore the area.

Things to do in Cartmel

Situated just outside the National Park, Cartmel is a particularly pleasant village (adjudged best-kept village in Cumbria on several occasions) with a good deal of interest. The village square and old water pump, the courtyards of artisans' houses and especially the Norman priory church are among the highlights. National Hunt race meetings are held twice a year, in May and August, and the Cartmel Show takes place on the second Wednesday in August. Cartmel Priory, though, is the main attraction; established as an Augustinian priory in 1188, the church and a gatehouse have survived, the church with its two towers unusually set diagonally to each other and some surviving medieval glass, including John the Baptist and the Virgin and Child.

Cartmel Fell

Cartmel Fell is a fascinating area of hills and hollows sprawling to the east of Lake Windermere, and is especially valuable as a quiet alternative to the overcrowded honeypots in summer. Amongst the centres of interest are the chapel, small and plain but an excellent example of its type and with a fine view (even better from the adjacent rocky, heathery knoll) over the sands of Morecambe Bay; the spinning galleries at Hodge Hdl and Pool Bank; and the Mason's Arms, an extraordinary pub in a remote location on Strawberry Bank but with a mouthwatering selection of beers.

Castlerigg stone circle was described by Keats as 'a dismal cirque of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor', but this was an unusually negative reaction to the sight of the Neolithic monument in its majestic mountain setting. Castlerigg is easily reached from Keswick and consequently is surprisingly popular; coach parties are amongst those making the journey back in time. There are 38 stones in a not quite perfect circle, with a further 10 stones set within the circle: the purpose of this extraordinary prehistoric construction is unknown. The views are stupendous and include Skiddaw, Blencathra its southern ridges and gullies particularly well seen across the stone circle the craggy northwestern outliers of the Helvellyn massif, and the fells clustering around Grasmoor and Grisedale Pike.

Catbells is one of the most popular of the lower fells, being easily accessible from Keswick and very easily ascended on one of the broad paths which heaet for its summit. Perhaps the best plan is to ascend from Hawse End, south of the delectable gardens at Lingholm, then traverse the fell and descend from Hause Gate, the col separating Catbells and Maiden Moor, into Newlands at Little Town taking care to avoid the mine workings in Yewthwaite Comb. The classic attribute of the fell is the tremendous prospect over Derwentwater, with its wooded islands, towards Keswick and, behind the town, the massive peaks of Skiddaw and Blencathra.

On the eastern slopes of Catbells is Brandlehow Park, which was the first acquisition of the newly-formed National Trust in 1902. Further south, on the lower slopes, are the remains of the Brandlehow lead mine, together with Brackenburn, home of Sir Hugh Walpole, author of the Herries novels.

Chapel Stile functions now as one of the tourist centres of Great Langdale, but was previously populated mostly by workers in the slate quarries and the gunpowder works at Elterwater. The church dates from the middle of the nineteenth century; the curate in charge of its predecessor, only a century older, was recorded in 1787 as having to sell beer to keep body and soul together.

Cockermouth things to do

Cockermouth is a quietly attractive town with a long, broad main street. Although it is just outside the National Park it acts as a centre for much of the northwest quadrant of the Lake District. The ruined castle (open to the public on occasions) sits above an industrial quarter which includes Jennings Brewery; the castle dates from 1134 but little of the original structure, which was built partly from stones brought from the Roman fort of Derventio at nearby Papcastle, has survived.

The Wordsworth Museum Cockermouth

At the far end of the main street is the Georgian house which was William Wordsworth's birthplace. The house, which is now in the care of the National Trust, houses a small Wordsworth museum. The market at Cockermouth is a colourful and cheerful event; the first market charter dates from 1221 but it was not until 1638 that the Earl of Northumberland secured the right to hold a fair on summer Wednesdays.

Coniston things to do

Coniston, big village rather than small town, is the natural centre for walking in the Coniston Fells but otherwise is a little out of the mainstream. The village itself has tourist shops and a number of inns but is mainly a slate grey former mining village, its prosperity founded in the ores of the Coppermines Valley, a short and instructive walk from Coniston alongside the Church Beck. Many walkers continue up to Levers Water, once a reservoir for the mines, and then climb up to the Old Man of Coniston, only just the highest of the Coniston Fells but with a tremendous southerly view.

The village was once served by a particularly picturesque branch railway: built to transport copper and slate, it finally closed in 1957. Coniston Hall, just to the south of the village, is cruckframed a rarity hereabouts and has tall cylindrical chimneys.

The Ruskin Museum Coniston

In Coniston itself is the Ruskin Museum, well worth a visit for its collections of geological specimens, pictures and letters associated with John Ruskin. Coniston Water is one of the most impressive of the lakes, with marvellous mountain scenery especially effective when viewed from the east shore of the lake, near John Ruskin's home at Brantwood and a good deal of public access, both by road at Monk Coniston and along the eastern shore, and by footpath as at Torver Back Common in the southwest. The lake is long, narrow and straight and as a result has been much favoured for world record water speed attempt, including the ill-fated trip of Donald Campbell in 1967. The steamboat Gondola, for some time a forlorn wreck at the southern end of the lake, has been restored and now offers a regular service. There is a boating centre and sailing club at Coniston Hall, and plenty of fishing.

The lake, originally known as Thurston's Mere, was much used to export the ores from Coppermines Valley near Coniston, together with shipments of slate, and there are further signs of industry in the bloomery sites around its southern shores. Crummock Water, 4km (21 miles) long and almost 50m (160ft) deep, is the lower half of the massive post-glacial lake which once filled the flat valley floor of the Buttermere valley; deposition has created an alluvial plain separating it from Buttermere itself. Though there are attractive views across the lake to Grasmoor End, which rises precipitously above the bracken-infested common at Lanthwaite Green, Crummock Water is not one of the most picturesque lakes. Perhaps the best view of the lake itself is from the rough top of Rannerdale Knotts, which broods over the side valley containing the deserted medieval settlement of Rannerdale, whose chapel and farmhouses have vanished virtually without trace.

Dacre, though close to Ullswater, is off the beaten track but has much to offer the antiquarian. Most notable, perhaps, is its pele tower, built in the fourteenth century on the site of a Norman castle, restored somewhat later but still largely in its original condition. The castle can be approached via a public footpath but it is private property. The church of Dacre is also unusually interesting. The present building dates from the Norman period, as the sturdy west tower indicates, but it stands on the site of a Saxon monastery and there are Saxon remains to be discovered. In the churchyard are four strange stones, of unknown and mysterious origin.

Dale Head, the highest fell in the triangle of high land between Newlands Hause, Honister and Borrowdale, stands proudly at the head of the Newlands valley (hence the name) and there are tremendous views from its extremely attractive summit cairn. The fell is the focal point of the Newlands Round, an excellent fellwalking expedition, but can also be climbed from Honister Pass and (via Robinson) from Buttermere.

Latterly there was considerable mining activity on the slopes of the mountain, and indeed the Dale Head copper mines below the summit, having been opened up by the German miners in the sixteenth century, were later developed by the Duke of Somerset, who built a bloomery at the site to process the ore. The ruined sheds and spoil heaps can still be seen; amongst the spoil are fragments with bright green copper malachite veins. Derwentwater, close to Keswick and therefore extremely popular, is a wonderfully scenic lake which is just as breathtakingly beautiful when it fills the foreground as when it appears as the focal point of a distant view.

Things to do in Ambleside

Ambleside has perhaps succumbed too much to tourism, but given the town's superb location this was inevitable and the wonder is that there is still so much to see. Best of all, perhaps, is the oldest part of the town, in narrow streets climbing above the flood plain of the River Rothay to Above Stock; the former chapel of St Anne's, the old house of How Head, the grey slate farmhouses and the Golden Rule, a marvellously unspoilt pub, make a fine combination.

Less attractive are the overcrowded market place, with its myriad gift shops, and the Bridge House, possibly built in the seventeenth century as a summerhouse for Ambleside Hall but now just one of the National Trust's odder properties. The parish church, built in the 1850s and designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is the successor to the chapel in Above Stock.

Ambleside mills

A number of mills can be seen: the Old Mill, now a pottery, was formerly a corn mill and dates from the fourteenth century, while a converted bobbin mill can be seen upstream, together with the remains of mill races. Still further upstream is Stockghyll Force, much visited by the early tourists and in a pleasantly wooded ravine but for all that a minor waterfall. At Waterhead there is a steamer service along the length of Windermere, while at the head of the lake are the remains of Ambleside's precursor, the Roman fort of Gala va. Amongst the many events in the town's calendar are the Ambleside Sports, held on the Thursday before the first Monday in July, and the rushbearing ceremony, which takes place on the first Saturday in July.

Lake district towns and villages

Askham, attractively situated above the Lowther valley, is a particularly good example of an Anglian green village, with farms and cottages set around a long, narrow central green. The village was one of several purchased by the Lowthers when they were ensconced in the nearby castle and at the height of their power in the eighteenth century. Little survives from before this period, though Askham Hall dates in part from the fourteenth century.

Backbarrow is an industrial hamlet in the Leven valley, with the remains of the most ambitious of Lakeland's iron furnaces, originally built in 1711, and other relics of the heyday of water power. The 'Dolly Blue' works closed only recently and has been converted into an hotel and timeshare complex.

Bampton is an unremarkable village in the Lowther valley, passed through by many on their way to Haweswater reservoir and Mardale Head. The name of the pub, the St Patrick's Well Inn, recalls the legend that St Patrick walked to Bampton after having been shipwrecked on Duddon Sands in 540AD. The nearby hamlet of Bampton Grange was originally an outlying farm of Shap Abbey.

Bassenthwaite village not only stands well away from the lake of the same nae, but it is also shunned by the two churches with which its name is associated. The older of the two, that of St Bega, lies two miles to the south, along an unmade track by the lake shore; it has a Norman chancel arch but little else escaped the Victorian restorers. St John, an elaborate edifice of 1878, is situated close to the village school in the hamlet of Chapel. The centre of the village, though, is the irregular green around which a mixture of slategrey cottages and newer houses cluster.

Bassenthwaite Lake, although it sits prettily at the foot of Skiddaw's western outliers and is especially attractive when seen from them (the view down the lake from the little subsidiary peak of Dodd is reasonably accessible and very pleasant), is really too far divorced from the central core of the Lake District to yield a great deal which is spectacular. Some four miles in length and fourth largest of the lakes, it has the fast, noisy A66 along the bulk of its western shore and is perhaps best approached from the east, either at Bassenthwaite's older church or near Mirehouse, where the house and grounds are open at certain times. The northern section of the lake is used by the Bassenthwaite Sailing Club. Since 1979 the lake has been owned by the Lake District Special Planning Board.

Black Combe is the forgotten fell of the Lake District, its smooth slopes covering a huge area in the extreme southwest yet so far removed from the mountain core as to be scarcely glimpsed from most of the central fells. Yet it is of unusual interest, being composed of an outcrop of Skiddaw Slates encircled by Borrowdale Volcanics, and with one of the Lake District's rare stone circles on the slopes of its northeastern spur, Swinside Fell. Monk Foss, at the foot of its western slopes, was one of Furness Abbey's properties until 1242, when it passed into the hands of David de Mulcaster. Wordsworth was sufficiently impressed to write a poem about the fell in 1813 View from the top of Black Combe.

Blea Tarn must be the most common tarn name in the district though arguably the best is actually called Blea Water; this one is the deepest of all the tarns and nestles in a corrie plucked out of the higher slopes of High Street and Mardale III Bell. The best known Blea Tarn sits in an upland hollow between Great Langdale and Little Langdale, is owned by the National Trust, and has excellent and striking views of the Langdale Pikes.

Blencathra, still occasionally called Saddleback after the distinctive profile of the summit plateau, is one of the great mountains of Britain, with a succession of splendid routes up the ridges and intervening gullies which make up its distinctive southern face and, tucked around its eastern flank, the spectacular rocky arete of Sharp Edge above Scales Tam.

The best of the southern approaches is from Gategill, ascending Hall's Fell and the exciting Narrow Edge to arrive exactly at the summit. Blencathra's name is of Celtic origin, and so too is that of the Glenderamackin, the river which meanders around its northern, eastern and southern flanks; the walk along the valley on a green path from Mungrisdale is delightful. To the west the Glenderaterra Beck divides Blencathra from Skiddaw.

Boot is a splendid base for exploring upper Eskdale, with two inns (the Burnmoor and, somewhat away from the hamlet, the Woolpack, formerly catering for the packhorse trains) and a variety of other accommodation. There is plenty to be seen in and around the hamlet: the remains of iron ore mines, the packhorse bridge over the Whillan Beck and the adjacent com mill, painstakingly restored and now open to the public, and the chapel of St Catherine, down by the River Esk, here at its most delightful with wooded banks, rocky gorges and stepping stones. A fine walk leaves Boot over the packhorse bridge, then climbs alongside the beck to reach Burnmoor, with its burial mounds, secluded tam and excellent views towards and across Wasdale.

Borrowdale is the Lake District dale par excellence, with a classic lake, with its gentle sylvan beauty, giving way to the rugged slopes of dramatic fells higher up the dale. There is something for everyone, notably the sight of Derwentwater from a whole series of splendid if somewhat hackneyed viewpoints such as Friar's Crag, Ashness Bridge or the Surprise View, the subdued and intricate landscape of the mid-valley around Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite, and the fellwalkers' paradise around Seathwaite, with paths striking off in all directions at the start of classic expeditions to Great Gable, Great End, Scafell Pike and the other major peaks.

But there is much more the unusual, such as the glacial erratic known as the Bowder Stone; the picturesque, including the Lodore Falls; and the historic, represented by the hill fort on Castle Crag. Rock climbers will make for Shepherd's Crag, botanists for Johnny Wood, with its ferns and liverworts, and others for man-made attractions such as the bridge at Grangein Borrowdale.

Bowfell, though it is seen to advantage from Langstrath, where its bleak northern cliffs stand above Angle Tam, and from upper Eskdale, where the mountain takes on the appearance of a rocky pyramid, really belongs to Langdale, and is probably climbed most frequently from there, along the rising slopes of The Band to Three Tams a desolate and windswept spot between Bowfell and Crinkle Crags and then either direct to the summit or, more excitingly, along the climbers' traverse below Flat Crag and the jagged outline of Cambridge Crag to the awesome Bowfell Buttress.

The top of Bowfell is a jumbled mass of naked rock, with a nice little rocky pyramid for the summit itself. The views are exceptional, too, with a very good profile of the Scafell range and a long prospect down the Esk valley to the Irish Sea.

Bowness hotels the Lake District

If you are looking for a Lake District hotel, and you want to be close to the main attractions of the lakes, look no further than Bowness. This pretty town on Windermere is home to some of the best guesthouses, Lake District cottages and boutique hotels you will find in the Lake District.

Bowness, which has now coalesced with Windermere town, is the closer of the two to the lake and has therefore developed a considerable range of facilities for the tourists who congregate here. It does still have its attractions, however, with a pleasant town centre behind the promenade at Bowness Bay, where there is a steamer pier and a variety of boats for hire. Here too is a theatre and a steamboat museum. Nearby Adelaide Hill has a very good overall view of Windermere lake.

Braithwaite has seen a good deal of recent housing development and has not grown in attractiveness as a result. This was the original location of the Cumberland Pencil Company, which began here in 1868 but moved to Keswick thirty years later after a disastrous fire. The Coledale Inn was at one time the factory manager's house. Now the village has a rather suburban feel to it Keswick is close at hand along the intrusive A66, which bypasses Braithwaite though it is nicely situated at the foot of the Whinlatter Pass and the ascent of Grisedale Pike, a very worthwhile expedition, starts not far from the village.

Brotherilkeld is the highest farm in Eskdale (though Taw House across the Esk is not too far downstream) and has been so since it was first established by the Norse settlers. The farm was sold to the monks of Furness Abbey in 1242 and has since functioned as the centre of a massive sheeprearing enterprise. The present farmhouse, long, low and white, dates from the great rebuilding in the Lake District during the heyday of the statesmen farmers in the seventeenth century. A magnificent walk hereabouts follows the Esk upstream to Lingcove Bridge; at higher level the Hardknott Roman fort can also be reached without too much difficulty.

Brothers Water, shallow, reed-fringed and small, is sometimes regarded as a reservoir because of its straight shorelines but is in fact a natural lake at the head of the Patterdale valley, close to the picturesque village of Hartsop and at the foot of the climb to the Kirkstone Pass. The lake was once a great deal larger, and its straight southern shore represents the edge of a mass of deposited material which fills the valley as far as the mouth of Dovedale. It is possible, too, that Brothers Water was once joined to Ullswater; certainly there is a narrow, flat valley floor between the two lakes. Few walkers visit the lake, though there is access to the western side, and the added interest of prehistoric homesteads close at hand.