Category: Lake District
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Home for the weekend
Rose Castle, overlooking Tarn Hows, near Hawkshead. An annual weekend retreat for twenty-five years. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Penny Rigg Quarries, Tilberthwaite
This great gash dominates the lower slopes of Wetherlam. Sandwiched between Tilberthwaite Gill and the remains of the Tilberthwaite copper mill, the 18th-century quarrymen were seeking a band of fine quality silver-grey slate. The slate is in a vertical bedding plane meaning extraction is very economical with minimal gunpowder needed. The slates were carted to…
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East Bonsor Copper Mine
Copper has been mines in the valley west of Coniston since Elizabethan times but it is only below ground can remains be found. Wooden false floors in the vertical voids that a rotting away make exploring quite a hazardous pastime. Above ground most of the remains are 18th-century. At East Bonsor the remains of the…
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Tarn Hows
One of the National Trust’s iconic properties. A place for which I have a lot of affection. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Blackarse sheep
Spotted near Coniston. You will have heard, of course, of blackface sheep, well these are blackarse sheep, a truly rare breed. Those were my first thoughts but then noticed the patches were of a material “sewn” onto the fleece. Ah, must be a sheep’s chastity belt. Hasn’t stopped the tups trying. A farmer fellow confirmed…
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Threlkeld Knotts
A morning run up Clough Head before the weather turned. The 2,381 feet fell stands at the northern end of the Helvellyn ridge, a sentinel overlooking Threlkeld and the Glendermackin valley. It’s an out of the way hill I think I have only climbed a couple of times before, Blencathra across the valley always the…
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Cat Gill
Cat Gill separates Walla Crag and Falcon Crag on the east side of Derwent Water. It provides a steep climb up Bleaberry Fell alongside waterfalls and through plantations of larch and birch still hanging on with their autumnal colours. The view is looking west to the Derwent and Coledale Fells, the highest summit is Crag…
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Blease Fell and Blencathra
Blease Fell is said to be the easy way up Blencathra. Starting from the Blencathra Centre, the complex of slate buildings bottom left in the photo, it is at first a seemingly relentless climb but then follows a pleasant ridge to the highest point at 868 m or 2,848 ft in old money. The Blencathra Centre is…
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Peace How
I’ve climbed up to the High Spy ridge via Knitting Haws using the Public Footpath from the Borrowdale Gates Hotel several times before. I’ve passed just the other side of the holly tree on the right of the photo skirting around and hardly noticing the small ring contour on my right. That small ring contour…
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Derwent Water
A day of dramatic skies and swirling clouds. Who needs fireworks? Derwent Water is the third-largest lake in the Lake District. Derwent Island is its largest island and was once owned by Fountains Abbey. Today it is a National Trust property and is the lake’s only inhabited island. Open Space Web-Map builder Code