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.