Category: Lake District
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Goldrill Beck Set Free
Mist and drizzle soften the view over upper Patterdale, where Brotherswater draws the eye and Goldrill Beck winds its way across the valley floor. Not long ago this river was forced into a rigid eighteenth-century channel, cut straight alongside the A592 at the edge of the wood beneath Hartsop above How. The result was a…
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Mediobogdum: A Harsh Posting for Rome’s Auxiliaries
It was not my first visit to Mediobogdum, better known as Hardknott Roman Fort, but it was the first time the weather allowed me to see it properly. The forecast had promised worse, yet the skies shifted restlessly, throwing sudden light and shadow across the valley of the River Esk, a green quilt of fields…
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Nab Gill: The Lost Industry of Eskdale
Cross the little packhorse bridge by Eskdale Mill in Boot, glance left, and you will see stone ruins that have long been forgotten. The remains stand upon a loading platform, above the overgrown site of Boot railway station. These are the offices and works of Nab Gill Ironstone Mine, named after the great cleft high…
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Stand-off in Eskdale
A stand-off on the path below Harter Fell. The lead yow stood her ground until I raised the camera, then broke into a dash that set the rest of the flock thundering up the fell. The Lakes is quintessential sheep country, and the sheep that defines it is the Herdwick. Wiry and stubborn, they seem…
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Commonwood Quarries and the Quest for Slate
Caw in the Dunnerdale Fells may rise only 529 metres, yet it carries the unmistakable outline of a true mountain. From the abandoned Commonwood Quarries above Ulpha, its shape dominates the view. These workings were once famed for their “green” slate. The site remains striking, a scatter of ruined buildings, deep quarried faces and silent…
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From Furness to Byland: A Monastic Odyssey
Hidden in the sombrely named Vale of Nightshade, just south of Dalton-in-Furness, stand the remains of Furness Abbey. Founded in 1123 by King Stephen, it began life as a Savigniac house before being absorbed into the Cistercian order in 1147, when the Savigniacs collapsed under the weight of their own mismanagement. By the time of…
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Roa Island, the RNLI and a Measure of Humanity
To Roa Island, once a true island until a stone causeway tethered it to the mainland in 1847. That same causeway carried the Furness Railway to a deep-water pier, where steamers departed for Fleetwood. The trains and steamers are gone, but today Roa Island still looks out to sea, its ferry carrying passengers across to…
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Birkrigg Common Stone Circle
Of the roughly 250 stone circles known in England, only 15 are classed as concentric, formed of both an inner and an outer ring. The most celebrated examples are, of course, Stonehenge and Avebury. Less famous, but striking in its own right, is the Birkrigg or Sunbrick stone circle, also called the Druids’ Circle. It…
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Red Tarn: A Bowl Carved by Ice
This is Red Tarn, tucked into the hollow beneath Helvellyn that looks like an armchair carved into the mountainside. The shape is no accident. It is the work of glaciers. The steep headwall of Helvellyn and the sharp ridges of Striding and Swirral Edges are the giveaway. Together they form a semi-circle. Geologists call this…
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Kentmere: The Tarn That Industry Remade
I looked at the map and wondered where the real Kentmere was, the “mere,” or water, of the River Kent. There is the reservoir, high in the dale, and there is Kentmere Tarn, a long, tranquil pool screened by trees, looking for all the world like untouched nature. In truth, nature had its turn ten…