The waters of Windermere spa pool hotels
Other schemes have been less obtrusive. Whilst Seathwaite Tarn is obviously a reservoir (in this case for the towns of west Cumberland) the waters of Windermere have been harnessed to increase Manchester's supply still further without serious environmental consequences, and extraction from Ennerdale Water and even Wastwater has been smallscale and lowkey to date.
Visitors to Windermere can now book a range of luxury accomodation, including romantic hotels, luxury themed suites and boutique hotel rooms with wonderful views over Windermere.Nevertheless there have been other losses, such as the little-known valley of Wet Sleddale in the far eastern fells, and new schemes are still brought forward.
The most objectionable of threcent crop was the proposal to increase the rate of extraction from Ennerdale Water and Wastwater to feed the Sellafield works; the lesson of Haweswater, with its dreadfully ugly bleached shoreline, has apparently still not been fully appreciated.
Greatly improved communications created a further challenge to the district from the eighteenth century onwards. Some idea of the considerable isolation of the area before the development of modern roads can be gained from the fact that until 1757 regular packhorse trains still left Kendal for London, and in the dales themselves packhorse routes such as those over Sty Head and between Borrowdale and Patterdale via Greenup Edge, Grasmere and Grisedale Pass were of crucial importance decades after this.
Early transport in the Lake District
The greatest legacy of the packhorse era is the survival of simple, lowarched packhorse bridges, including those at Stockley Beck in Borrowdale, New Bridge on the Walna Scar Road and Birks Bridge in upper Dunnerdale. The traditional route across the sands of Morecambe Bay was still used regularly in the eighteenth century despite the inherent dangers of tides and quicksands and a new service was introduced as late as 1781, with a light coach capable of carrying three passengers plying the route at a fare of five shillings.
But by now the first turnpike routes were already in existence and it would not be long before a series of railways constructed around the fringes of the Lake District opened up the area yet further. Twentieth century tourism has affected the Lake District to a degree which would have astonished the early visitors with their Claude glasses and their horror of venturing far into the mountain recesses at the heart of the district.
The easy accessibility of the district, mainly as a result of vastly increased car ownership and the construction of roads such as the M6, has resulted in an avalanche of visitors which has all but overwhelmed the tourist honeypots such as Grasmere, Ambleside and Bowness, and which has led to erosion on the most popular paths. Nevertheless, experienced Lakers can easily escape from the crowds, though they can only do so (and most are only too willing to do so) by forsaking the more obvious assets of the district such as Striding Edge and seeking out the less frequented but no less fascinating country away from the crowds.
The problem of erosion is a serious one, too, with paths being literally worn out by the passage of too many feet. Two examples from Great Langdale will suffice: the path from New Dungeon Ghyll to Stickle Tarn, substantially rebuilt for some hundreds of feet from valley level upwards, to such an extent that it resembles a staircase in places, and the broad highway leading up The Band from Stool End Farm to Three Tarns and Bowfell, where again enormous effort has had to be employed in restoring a path destroyed by walkers' boots. All too frequently paths are widened and deepened to such a degree that they even disfigure the distant views of the most attractive fells.
Tourism in the Lake District hotels with hot tubs
But the effect of tourism is not just to be seen in erosion of the most popular paths. It has much more fundamental effects too, on the economy of the area and the housing needs of local people. The congested roads of summer, particularly in places such as Ambleside, have posed apparently insuperable problems. In the case of Ambleside any bypass would be disastrous for the landscape, yet the existing roads are clearly inadequate to meet the demand.
Grasmere, though its roads cope, has seen vast areas of land swallowed up in the creation of car parks. More worrying still has been the selective incursion of second home owners into the specially attractive and accessible villages such as Hartsop and Troutbeck.
Such places can be converted into part-time villages, almost deserted in midweek and throughout the winter, unable to sustain local services and providing the focus for fewer and fewer farming enterprises as farms are amalgamated and the demand for agricultural labour decreases.
The sometimes astronomical rise in house prices in such villages means that locals are in any case unable to compete and since the Planning Board rightly restricts the number of new houses being built they have to move away from their local area.
All is not lost, however: though the Planning Board has been powerless to stop some of the unwelcome developments in this apparently gloomy catalogue it has had a hand in resisting certain incursions and it has been instrumental in conserving a great deal of the district's landscape simply by striving to keep the status quo. The highly encouraging result, as the succeeding chapters of this book illustrate, is that there is much to see and much to celebrate.
Walking in the Lake District
The lakes are almost wholly unspoilt, yet between them cater where appropriate for a diverse cross-section including boating enthusiasts. The villages and towns, especially away from the accessible southeast, offer fascinating opportunities for exploration and a friendly welcome. There is a wealth of historic and literary associations and sites, and above all a network of rights of way that is so comprehensive that most dales can easily be explored on footpaths well away from roads.
At a higher level the fells are almost without exception open to all, with an astonishing array of magnificent walking complemented by countless rock climbs of varied difficulty but consistently high quality. Ill-fated Rutland had the motto 'much in little'; richly deserved though this was, there can be little doubt that, given the remarkable quality and variety of the scenery of mountain and lake, it is a description which applies to the Lake District above all other districts in Britain.
Lake District Scenery and places to stay
Two contrasting rock types between them determine the character of the majority of the mountain scenery of the Lake District: the Skiddaw Slates and the Borrowable Volcanic. Other rocks, however, are locally important in helping to explain the landscape which we see today, and these include the Coniston Limestones, a band of weaker rocks which define some of the most important passes of southern Lakeland, and the Silurian series of shale’s and grits which form the gentle, rounded hills around Windermere. But whilst these rock formations explain the basic character of the landscape, the subsequent history of the rocks, and especially the effects of glaciations, have also had a profound influence on the final form of the landscape.
When you decide where to stay in the Lake District it may depend on what you plan to do while you are there, but one of the best places to base yourself is Windermere or Bowness, as they are convenient for all attractions, walks and lakes, and boasts some of the best luxury hotels and romantic hotels in the region.
Foundations of the Lake District
The northern Lake District is dominated by the Skiddaw Slates, the oldest rocks in the area. Skiddaw itself, neighbouring Blencathni and the Newlands fells are all composed of these ancient sedimentary rocks, formed in the muddy depths of the sea in the Ordovician period some 500 million years ago, and later hardened into slates, shales and fine-grained grits.
Perhaps the character of the resulting landscape is best typified, however, by the gentle, grassy slopes of the Caldbeck and Uldale fells the country commonly known as Back 0' Skidda'. Here there is a succession of smooth, regular ridges with shaly debris moderating the angle of the steeper slopes and a surface cover of grass and heather on the gentler slopes.
The group of Great and Little Sea Fells (nothing to do with their more illustrious namesake!), Meal Fell and Great Cockup is a fine example of this pattern of high, grassy and rather featureless sheepwalks, where the smallest landscape features of any worth notably, in this case, the remarkably steep sided trough of Trusmadoor between Meal Fell and Great Cockup come as a surprise and indeed a delight to the explorer.
Buttermere and Crummock Water
There are a number of exceptions to this general rule, of course. One is the High Stile ridge west of Buttermere and Crummock Water, which is uncharacteristically rugged, with towering crags ringing Birkness Comb; another is the crumbling face of Hobcarton Crag between Grisedale Pike and Hopegill Head in the north-western fells.
And even in Back O' Skidda' country, there are dramatic contrasts to the smooth slopes already mentioned. The view from the crumbling walls of the hill fort on the summit of Carrock Fell may be dominated by rounded slopes such as those of The Knott, that dullest of mountains, but even here the massive, rocky back wall of the corrie containing Bowscale Tam is prominent across the valley of the Caldew, and in the distance the unmistakable outline of Foule Crag and Sharp Edge, those rocky bastions of Blencathra's summit plateau, is clearly in view. Nevertheless, the overall pattern is one of a subdued, rounded landscape, though even this is deceptive since Skiddaw is one of the four highest mountains in the Lake District.
Skiddaw and Grasmoor
Although the main outcrop runs from the north-eastern fringes of the Lake District through Skiddaw and Grasmoor to the smooth, lonely fells south of Ennerd ale Water, the Skiddaw Slates also outcrop in some unlikely locations.
The most farflung is the remote block of fells in the extreme southwest of the Lake District the massive whaleback of Black Combe and its satellites. This is an area of grassy, softly rounded fells, rarely visited except by explorers trekking across the flanks of Knott Hill to Swinside stone circle.
The dramatic difference between the scenery associated with the two major rock types is especially obvious in Borrowdale, the most varied of Lake District dales. Here the smooth slopes of the Catbells ridge, composed of Skiddaw slates, contrast vividly with the more broken, craggy character of the fells across the valley, to the east of Grange.
Here the Borrowdale Volcanic, a series of solidified lavas and tuffs, have through their relative hardness and their reaction to erosion created a very different landscape. It is the landscape of the Scafell range, with dramatic cliffs such as Scafell Crag and the north wall of Great End, together with the bouldery summit plateau of Scafell Pike; of the Langdale Pikes, thrusting 600m (2,000ft) upwards from the flat valley floor of Great Langdale; and of Helvellyn, its western slopes surprisingly grassy and smooth (though unremittingly steep) but with dramatically craggy eastern approaches.
If you plan to spend your Lake District holiday walking in the fells, there is no better place to come home to than a spa hotel or a boutique hotel in Windermere or Bowness, where you can relax and recharge your batteries.
Visitors to Windermere can now book a range of luxury accomodation, including romantic hotels, luxury themed suites and boutique hotel rooms with wonderful views over Windermere.Nevertheless there have been other losses, such as the little-known valley of Wet Sleddale in the far eastern fells, and new schemes are still brought forward.
The most objectionable of threcent crop was the proposal to increase the rate of extraction from Ennerdale Water and Wastwater to feed the Sellafield works; the lesson of Haweswater, with its dreadfully ugly bleached shoreline, has apparently still not been fully appreciated.
Greatly improved communications created a further challenge to the district from the eighteenth century onwards. Some idea of the considerable isolation of the area before the development of modern roads can be gained from the fact that until 1757 regular packhorse trains still left Kendal for London, and in the dales themselves packhorse routes such as those over Sty Head and between Borrowdale and Patterdale via Greenup Edge, Grasmere and Grisedale Pass were of crucial importance decades after this.
Early transport in the Lake District
The greatest legacy of the packhorse era is the survival of simple, lowarched packhorse bridges, including those at Stockley Beck in Borrowdale, New Bridge on the Walna Scar Road and Birks Bridge in upper Dunnerdale. The traditional route across the sands of Morecambe Bay was still used regularly in the eighteenth century despite the inherent dangers of tides and quicksands and a new service was introduced as late as 1781, with a light coach capable of carrying three passengers plying the route at a fare of five shillings.
But by now the first turnpike routes were already in existence and it would not be long before a series of railways constructed around the fringes of the Lake District opened up the area yet further. Twentieth century tourism has affected the Lake District to a degree which would have astonished the early visitors with their Claude glasses and their horror of venturing far into the mountain recesses at the heart of the district.
The easy accessibility of the district, mainly as a result of vastly increased car ownership and the construction of roads such as the M6, has resulted in an avalanche of visitors which has all but overwhelmed the tourist honeypots such as Grasmere, Ambleside and Bowness, and which has led to erosion on the most popular paths. Nevertheless, experienced Lakers can easily escape from the crowds, though they can only do so (and most are only too willing to do so) by forsaking the more obvious assets of the district such as Striding Edge and seeking out the less frequented but no less fascinating country away from the crowds.
The problem of erosion is a serious one, too, with paths being literally worn out by the passage of too many feet. Two examples from Great Langdale will suffice: the path from New Dungeon Ghyll to Stickle Tarn, substantially rebuilt for some hundreds of feet from valley level upwards, to such an extent that it resembles a staircase in places, and the broad highway leading up The Band from Stool End Farm to Three Tarns and Bowfell, where again enormous effort has had to be employed in restoring a path destroyed by walkers' boots. All too frequently paths are widened and deepened to such a degree that they even disfigure the distant views of the most attractive fells.
Tourism in the Lake District hotels with hot tubs
But the effect of tourism is not just to be seen in erosion of the most popular paths. It has much more fundamental effects too, on the economy of the area and the housing needs of local people. The congested roads of summer, particularly in places such as Ambleside, have posed apparently insuperable problems. In the case of Ambleside any bypass would be disastrous for the landscape, yet the existing roads are clearly inadequate to meet the demand.
Grasmere, though its roads cope, has seen vast areas of land swallowed up in the creation of car parks. More worrying still has been the selective incursion of second home owners into the specially attractive and accessible villages such as Hartsop and Troutbeck.
Such places can be converted into part-time villages, almost deserted in midweek and throughout the winter, unable to sustain local services and providing the focus for fewer and fewer farming enterprises as farms are amalgamated and the demand for agricultural labour decreases.
The sometimes astronomical rise in house prices in such villages means that locals are in any case unable to compete and since the Planning Board rightly restricts the number of new houses being built they have to move away from their local area.
All is not lost, however: though the Planning Board has been powerless to stop some of the unwelcome developments in this apparently gloomy catalogue it has had a hand in resisting certain incursions and it has been instrumental in conserving a great deal of the district's landscape simply by striving to keep the status quo. The highly encouraging result, as the succeeding chapters of this book illustrate, is that there is much to see and much to celebrate.
Walking in the Lake District
The lakes are almost wholly unspoilt, yet between them cater where appropriate for a diverse cross-section including boating enthusiasts. The villages and towns, especially away from the accessible southeast, offer fascinating opportunities for exploration and a friendly welcome. There is a wealth of historic and literary associations and sites, and above all a network of rights of way that is so comprehensive that most dales can easily be explored on footpaths well away from roads.
At a higher level the fells are almost without exception open to all, with an astonishing array of magnificent walking complemented by countless rock climbs of varied difficulty but consistently high quality. Ill-fated Rutland had the motto 'much in little'; richly deserved though this was, there can be little doubt that, given the remarkable quality and variety of the scenery of mountain and lake, it is a description which applies to the Lake District above all other districts in Britain.
Lake District Scenery and places to stay
Two contrasting rock types between them determine the character of the majority of the mountain scenery of the Lake District: the Skiddaw Slates and the Borrowable Volcanic. Other rocks, however, are locally important in helping to explain the landscape which we see today, and these include the Coniston Limestones, a band of weaker rocks which define some of the most important passes of southern Lakeland, and the Silurian series of shale’s and grits which form the gentle, rounded hills around Windermere. But whilst these rock formations explain the basic character of the landscape, the subsequent history of the rocks, and especially the effects of glaciations, have also had a profound influence on the final form of the landscape.
When you decide where to stay in the Lake District it may depend on what you plan to do while you are there, but one of the best places to base yourself is Windermere or Bowness, as they are convenient for all attractions, walks and lakes, and boasts some of the best luxury hotels and romantic hotels in the region.
Foundations of the Lake District
The northern Lake District is dominated by the Skiddaw Slates, the oldest rocks in the area. Skiddaw itself, neighbouring Blencathni and the Newlands fells are all composed of these ancient sedimentary rocks, formed in the muddy depths of the sea in the Ordovician period some 500 million years ago, and later hardened into slates, shales and fine-grained grits.
Perhaps the character of the resulting landscape is best typified, however, by the gentle, grassy slopes of the Caldbeck and Uldale fells the country commonly known as Back 0' Skidda'. Here there is a succession of smooth, regular ridges with shaly debris moderating the angle of the steeper slopes and a surface cover of grass and heather on the gentler slopes.
The group of Great and Little Sea Fells (nothing to do with their more illustrious namesake!), Meal Fell and Great Cockup is a fine example of this pattern of high, grassy and rather featureless sheepwalks, where the smallest landscape features of any worth notably, in this case, the remarkably steep sided trough of Trusmadoor between Meal Fell and Great Cockup come as a surprise and indeed a delight to the explorer.
Buttermere and Crummock Water
There are a number of exceptions to this general rule, of course. One is the High Stile ridge west of Buttermere and Crummock Water, which is uncharacteristically rugged, with towering crags ringing Birkness Comb; another is the crumbling face of Hobcarton Crag between Grisedale Pike and Hopegill Head in the north-western fells.
And even in Back O' Skidda' country, there are dramatic contrasts to the smooth slopes already mentioned. The view from the crumbling walls of the hill fort on the summit of Carrock Fell may be dominated by rounded slopes such as those of The Knott, that dullest of mountains, but even here the massive, rocky back wall of the corrie containing Bowscale Tam is prominent across the valley of the Caldew, and in the distance the unmistakable outline of Foule Crag and Sharp Edge, those rocky bastions of Blencathra's summit plateau, is clearly in view. Nevertheless, the overall pattern is one of a subdued, rounded landscape, though even this is deceptive since Skiddaw is one of the four highest mountains in the Lake District.
Skiddaw and Grasmoor
Although the main outcrop runs from the north-eastern fringes of the Lake District through Skiddaw and Grasmoor to the smooth, lonely fells south of Ennerd ale Water, the Skiddaw Slates also outcrop in some unlikely locations.
The most farflung is the remote block of fells in the extreme southwest of the Lake District the massive whaleback of Black Combe and its satellites. This is an area of grassy, softly rounded fells, rarely visited except by explorers trekking across the flanks of Knott Hill to Swinside stone circle.
The dramatic difference between the scenery associated with the two major rock types is especially obvious in Borrowdale, the most varied of Lake District dales. Here the smooth slopes of the Catbells ridge, composed of Skiddaw slates, contrast vividly with the more broken, craggy character of the fells across the valley, to the east of Grange.
Here the Borrowdale Volcanic, a series of solidified lavas and tuffs, have through their relative hardness and their reaction to erosion created a very different landscape. It is the landscape of the Scafell range, with dramatic cliffs such as Scafell Crag and the north wall of Great End, together with the bouldery summit plateau of Scafell Pike; of the Langdale Pikes, thrusting 600m (2,000ft) upwards from the flat valley floor of Great Langdale; and of Helvellyn, its western slopes surprisingly grassy and smooth (though unremittingly steep) but with dramatically craggy eastern approaches.
If you plan to spend your Lake District holiday walking in the fells, there is no better place to come home to than a spa hotel or a boutique hotel in Windermere or Bowness, where you can relax and recharge your batteries.
posted by Windermere Boutique Hotels | 06:52
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