Famous places in the Lake District

Other fine examples are Goat's Water in the Coniston Fells, at the foot of the plunging buttresses and cascading scree fans of Dow Crag, and Bowscale Tarn, a little known corrie tarn in its dark bowl beneath the solid wall of Tarn Crag in the north-eastern slopes of Bowscale Fell near Mungrisdale.

Bowscale Tarn, according to Victorian legend, was so deep and dark that even on a fine summer's day stars could be seen reflected in its waters, and it was also reputed to be the home of two immortal fish.

Lake District Accommodation and Attractions

Lake District accommodation and attractions have undoubtedly moved on since the early days of tourism in the region, but one of the beauty of the lakes and the scenery remains virtually unchanged. Romantic hotels in Windermere overlook the lake, while boat trips around Ullswater gently transport passengers around the most scenic parts of the Lake District. Accommodation in Windermere, Bowness and Grasmere offers visitors some of the best romantic hotels, luxury hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation in Cumbria.

For a variety of reasons the number of tarns is less than was the case at the end of the last glacial period. In some cases man's intervention has proved disastrous: Keppelcove, in the Helvellyn range above Glen-ridding, became the reservoir for Greenside lead mine but broke its banks during a storm in 1927. The result is a green, flat marshy hollow which plainly proclaims its former status.

The eastern Lake District

In the eastern Lake District, where Blea Water (the deepest of all the tarns, with a maximum depth of 63m (207ft)) is a marvellous example of a corrie tarn in a cove with a spectacular back wall rising towards the summit of High Street, there is clear evidence below the surviving tam of a second tam at about 425m (l,400ft).

Now there is just a boggy depression cultivated by rushes, though the clearest evidence is the moraine glacial drift deposited at the edge of the ice which still defines the natural dam whose temporary function was to hold back the waters of this lower tam. Many corrie tarns, such as Levers Water in the Coniston Fells and Bowscale Tarn, are dammed by moraine piled up above the rock sill of the corrie, though others are penned back purely by the rocky lip of the corrie basin.

Where the head walls of two corries were being extended back by ice action into opposing sides of the same ridge, progressive narrowing of the ridge took place.

Hayeswater and Riggindale

The result is the sensational scenery of places such as the Straits of Riggindale, where the valley heads of Hayeswater and Riggindale are divided by a narrow ridge used by the Romans for their spectacular road along the crest of the High Street ridge, and Threshthwaite Mouth, where the coves at the head of the Pasture Beck and Trout Beck valleys have eaten back into the ridge.

In extreme cases the only remnant of the ridge is a desperately narrow arete, bare and rocky. The best known of these aretes is Striding Edge on Helvellyn, but they are perhaps best typified by Sharp Edge and Narrow Edge on Blencathra, and by the astonishing rocky ridge which connects Steeple, perched high above Ennerdale, to its parent mountain, Scoat Fell.

This delicate ridge, its sides dropping precipitously into Mirklin Cove to the west and Mirk Cove to the east, must have deterred many peak baggers coming upon it suddenly from the flat top of Scoat Fell. Sharp Edge, poised dramatically above the supposedly bottomless Scales Tarn, is even more challenging while Narrow Edge is broader but still a thrilling experience as well as a reminder of the power of ice to reshape the landscape.

Another upland feature is the hanging valley, often perched high above a major valley and with its stream cascading down over a steep rocky wall to the main valley floor. These valleys exist because of the differential erosive power of main valley glaciers fed from a variety of sources and with the ability to scour down the valley floor to below sea level in places and minor glaciers in side valleys, with only limited powers to gouge and erode.

There are many fine examples of upland valleys abruptly ending at a rock step high above the major dales: in a number of cases the naming of a stream as Sour Milk Gill is a clear reference to the existence of a hanging valley above a tumbling, viscous cascade taking the beck down to valley level.

Borrowdale the Lake District

Certainly this is the case in Borrowdale, where Gillercomb hangs above the main valley at Seathwaite, and in the Buttermere valley, where the beck issuing from Bleaberry Tarn in its comb below Red Pike crashes down violently to the alluvial flats between Buttermere and Crummock Water. A further example of a hanging valley, again from Borrowdale, is that of Comb Gill, a wild upland recess unsuspected from its lower reaches above Thornythwaite Farm.

Where the hanging valley drops near vertically to join its bigger brother the result, picturesquely in many cases, is a waterfall. Tourists flock to see some of them, notably Aira Force near Ullswater and Lodore Falls, where the Watendlath Beck emerges from a side valley hanging above Borrowdale though here the difference in level is exaggerated because the Skiddaw Slates of the main valley have been eroded more swiftly than the Borrowdale Volcanics on which the Watendlath Beck valley is founded.
Dalegarth Force Eskdale

Dalegarth Force in Eskdale, where Stanley Gill crashes 18m (60ft) over a rock step, is one of the finest waterfalls in the Lake District, and well worth a visit. The waterfall is enclosed in a narrow, wooded ravine which has now become the focal point of an excellent nature trail. A final example, very accessible and highly attractive, is Colwith Force, where the River Brathay drops from Little Langdale another good example of a hanging valley into Great Langdale.

Many of the glacial features in the valleys are associated with deposition rather than erosion, but one in-between feature, in terms of its location, is the ice marginal channel, which occurs high up on the sides of a number of valleys. The most prominent is the channel separating Castle Crag in the Jaws of Borrowdale from the fellside above; this was probably formed by a stream running along the side of a glacier when the whole of mid Borrowdale was filled with ice.

Pre¬historic man used the channel as part of the route beyond the Jaws into upper Borrowdale, and a Romano British settlement evolved on the easily defended Castle Crag. Other ice marginal channels occur on the slopes of High Doat nearby, on the western slopes of the Black Combe massif at Corney Fell, and very noticeably on the shoulders of Muncaster Fell, where streams taking the overflow from an Ice Age lake in Miterdale overflowed through channels scored into the granite fell at Ross's Camp and Chapel Hill.

In the valleys the most obvious features, apart from the general U shape and straightness of many dales, with their truncated, ice plucked spurs, are of course the lakes. In the same way as the corrie tams occupy rock hollows scoured out by the ice, these major lakes occupy over deepened trenches which pay eloquent testimony to the erosive power of the valley glaciers. Even Derwentwater, long considered to be merely wide and shallow, has a mean depth of around 21 m (70ft), while Crummock Water has a maximum depth of 44m (l44ft) and the two long, narrow finger lakes in the Silurian hills, Coniston Water and Windermere, can comfortably top this.

Perhaps these glaciers, confined in a narrow strip, plucked harder at the valley floors, for Coniston Water is up to 56m (l84ft) deep and Windermere reaches 67m (219ft). Wastwater is not only the wildest in character but also the deepest of them all, with a maximum depth of 79m (258ft) some 18m (58ft) below the level of the Irish Sea.

There is so much to explore in the Lake District, that it makes sense to stay in a central area and make the most of this diverse region. Windermere and Bowness offer visitors plenty of attractions and accommodation to suit all pockets and tastes. From five star luxury hotels to small romantic boutique hotels and b&b accomodation, Windermere, Bowness and Grasmere have it all.