©Andrew Locking ©Andrew Wasdale

Wasdale

Wasdale, in the far western Lake finds have been made elsewhere in rock climbing in the . The District, is a valley of extremes. the valley. By the early 1300s, there Inn at the head of the ’s highest mountain, were four recorded vaccaries, or valley became a thriving centre for Pike, looks down on England’s deepest commercial cattle farms, in Wasdale walkers and climbers, and still is today. lake, . But it’s also a place and by 1547, there were 19 farms listed of contrasts. The high, jagged that in rent records. Today, Wasdale is Wasdale is one of the most significant belong to the Volcanic one the Lake District’s key valleys for valleys in the National Trust’s Lake Group abruptly rearing the hardy Herdwick breed of District portfolio and it now owns give way, as the valley runs south sheep. The annual Wasdale Show and and protects a number of farms and west, to a gentle, wooded, pastoral Shepherds’ Meet is one of the main some 6,677 hectares of land. The landscape including large country events of the Herdwick farmers’ year. and Rock Climbing Club also donated houses, gardens and parkland. The Other than charcoal production in 3,000 acres of land to the Trust, scene opens out further as the valley the local woods and a small amount of including the iconic fell of runs into the estuary where the rivers mining on Irton Fell, farming was, and as a memorial to the fallen of World Irt and Mite meet the sea. still is, the main economic activity here. War I. In the late 1970s, The National Trust, The Friends of the Lake District, There’s a brooding drama to Wasdale, Cultural tourism to Wasdale was the Youth Hostel Association and with the imposing bulk of Great Gable, limited in the 18th and 19th centuries other local groups and individuals and at its head because of its far westerly location, came to together and managed to and the spectacular sight of The Screes but the more adventurous were successfully overturn a proposal by plunging into the glacial U-shaped starting to come here for the early British Nuclear Fuels to increase the valley lake. sport of rock climbing. This began to abstraction of water from Wast Water. develop in the late 19th and early 20th The earliest surviving traces of human centuries, encouraged by key figures Despite its more remote position, activity in Wasdale date back to such as Walter Parry Haskett Smith Wasdale is perhaps one of the best Mesolithic times. Neolithic stone axe and the Abraham brothers of Keswick. known and well-loved valleys in the workings have been found high up on Haskett Smith’s ascent of the famous Lake District thanks to its spectacular and evidence of Bronze Napes Needle on Great Gable in 1886 landscape of lake, screes and high Age settlement exists on the valley was a landmark in the popularity of mountains, which form the basis of the bottom. Early medieval and Norse Lake District National Park’s logo.

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