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The Lake District National Park is one of thirteen National parks in the United Kingdom. It lies entirely within the county of Cumbria, and is one of England's few mountainous regions. All the land in England higher than three thousand feet above sea level lies within the Park. The Lakes, as the region is also called, were made famous during the Victorian era by the poetry and writings of William Wordsworth. This whole land of fells presents wonderful and mystic scenes for painters and photographers and many visitors are attracted there to go rambling.
Geography
The Lake District is only about 55 kilometres across (north-to-south or west-to-east), but manages to pack into that relatively small area a wide variety of scenery, dominated by various formations left over by the last ice age. What nature has provided, the inhabitants have, on the whole, improved, with drainage of most of the dales (valleys), clearance of the valley bottoms to build the typical dry stone walls, and the sympathetic stone and whitewashed buildings that blend into the landscape.
There is a range of landscapes, including open moorland (covered with grass, bracken and heather), marshes, woodland (both native woodland and commercial pine plantations), limestone pavement, as well as small tarns and the larger lakes, which provide homes for a wide range of wildlife, including one of the remaining areas in England where the red squirrel still lives, as well as colonies of sundew, one of the few carnivorous plants native to Britain.
The area forms a radial drainage pattern, with the waters, broadly speaking, radiating out from the central hub of fells around the highest point in England: the peak of Scafell Pike, some 978 metres (3210 feet) above sea level, with a secondary hub from Helvellyn. Many of the major glacial valleys contain lakes, which also radiate from the central hub.
Alfred Wainwright wrote a series of seven Pictorial Guides to the Lake District, which walkers still use today. The books describe in loving detail 214 fells. Of these, four are over 3000 ft: Scafell Pike (3210 ft, 978 metres), Scafell (3162 ft, 965 metres), Helvellyn (3118 ft, 951 metres) and Skiddaw (3053 ft, 932 metres).
Despite its name, there is only one body of water in the park with the word Lake in the name, namely Bassenthwaite Lake. All the others such as Windermere, Coniston Water, Ullswater and Buttermere use other forms, with 'mere' being particularly common. Many of the most picturesque names date to the Viking invasion, especially fell, the natural English word in the North for mountain.
Amongst the area's many attractive towns are Grasmere (once home to William Wordsworth), Ambleside and Windermere.
Climate The Lake District's location on the north-west cost of England, coupled with its mountainous geography, makes it the wettest part of England. The UK Met Office reports average annual precipitation of more than 2,000 mm, but with very large local variation. Seathwaite in Borrowdale is the wettest inhabited place in the British Isles with an average of 3,300 mm of rain a year, while nearby Sprinkling Tarn is even wetter, recording over 5,000 mm per year; by contrast, Keswick, at the end of Borrowdale receives 1,470 mm per year, and Penrith (just outside the Lake District) only 870 mm. March to June tend to be the driest months, with October to January the wettest, but at low levels there is relatively little difference between months.
Sheltered valleys experience gales on an average of 5 days a year; the coastal areas have 20 days of gales; while the fell tops may have 100 days of gales per year.
The maritime climate means that the Lake District experiences relatively moderate temperature variations through the year. Mean temperature in the valleys ranges from about 3 °C in January to around 15 °C in July. (By comparison, Moscow, at the same lattitude, ranges from -10°C to 19°C.)
The relatively low height of most of the fells means that while snow is expected during the winter, they can be free of snow at any time of the year. Normally significant snow fall only occurs between November and April. On average snow falls on Helvellyn 67 days per year. During the year, valleys typically experience 20 days with snow falling, a further 200 wet days, and 145 dry days.
Hill fog is common at any time of year, and the fells average only around 2.5 hours of sunshine per day, increasing to around 4.1 hours per day on the coastal plains.
Industry and Agriculture Historically, farming, in particular of sheep, was the major industry in the region. The breed most closely associated with the area is the tough Herdwick. Sheep farming remains important both to the economy of the region, as well as in preserving the landscape which visitors want to see. Some land is also used for silage and dairy farming. There are extensive plantations of non-native trees.
The area was badly affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak across the United Kingdom in 2001. Thousands of sheep, grazing on the fellsides across the District, were destroyed. In replacing the sheep, one problem to overcome was that many of the lost sheep were hefted, that is, they knew their part of the unfenced fell and did not stray, with this knowledge being passed between generations. With all the sheep lost at once, this knowledge has to be re-learnt, and some of the fells have had discreet electric fences strung across them for a period of five years, to allow the sheep to "re-heft".
In Neolithic times, the Lake District was a major source of stone axes, examples of which have been found all over Britain. The primary site, on the slopes of the Langdale Pikes, is sometimes described as a 'stone axe factory' of the Langdale axe industry. Some of the earliest stone circles in Britain are connected with this industry.
Mining, particularly of copper, lead, silver, graphite and slate, was historically a major lakeland industry, mainly from the 16th century to the 19th century. Coppiced woodland was used extensively to provide charcoal for smelting. Some mining still takes place today - for example slate mining continues at the Honister Mines, at the top of Honister Pass. Abandoned mine-workings can be found on fell-sides throughout the district.
A typical Lake District scene, with verdant fields grazed by sheep in fields bounded by stone walls, a stone barn, white-washed houses, overlooked by a bracken-brown fell. The locally-mined graphite led to the development of the pencil industry, especially around Keswick.
In the middle of the 19th century, half the world textile industry's bobbin supply came from the Lake District area.
Over the past century, tourism has grown rapidly to become the area's primary source of income.
25 highest fells The 25 highest fells, of those selected by Alfred Wainwright, are: - 1. Scafell Pike, 978 m / 3210 ft
- 2. Scafell, 965 m / 3162 ft
- 3. Helvellyn, 951 m / 3118 ft
- 4. Skiddaw, 931 m / 3054 ft
- 5. Great End, 910 m / 2986 ft
- 6. Bowfell, 902 m / 2960 ft
- 7. Great Gable, 899 m / 2949 ft
- 8. Pillar, 892 m / 2926 ft
- 9. Nethermost Pike, 891 m / 2923 ft
- 10. Catstycam, 889 m / 2917 ft
- 11. Esk Pike, 885 m / 2903 ft
- 12. Raise, 883 m / 2896 ft
- 13. Fairfield, 873 m / 2863 ft
- 14. Blencathra, 868 m / 2847 ft
- 15. Skiddaw Little Man, 865 m / 2837 ft
- 16. White Side, 863 m / 2831 ft
- 17. Crinkle Crags, 859 m / 2818 ft
- 18. Dollywagon Pike, 858 m / 2815 ft
- 19. Great Dodd, 857 m / 2807 ft
- 20. Grasmoor, 852 m / 2795 ft
- 21. Stybarrow Dodd, 843 m / 2772 ft
- 22. St Sunday Crag, 841 m / 2759 ft
- 22. Scoat Fell, 841 m / 2759 ft
- 24. Crag Hill, 839 m / 2753 ft
- 25. High Street, 828 m / 2717 ft
More fells can be found on the list of fells in the Lake District and in the list of Wainwrights.
Major lakes More lakes, tarns and reservoirs can be found on the list of lakes in the Lake District.
See also
External links - Guide to the Lake District from Navito UK (http://www.navito.co.uk/lakedistrict/) - Introduction to the Lake District plus searchable database for locating Lake District pubs, hotels and other businesses and a book shop for maps and books about the Lake District.
Photographs of the area - http://www.lakedistrictdesktops.com/
- http://www.lakelandcam.co.uk/
- http://www.buyimage.co.uk/photonet/lakes/lakes.html
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