Haweswater ©Andrew Locking ©Andrew Haweswater

Haweswater

Like Thirlmere, Haweswater is a reservoir High Street, and linking forts at Penrith Before the flooding, the existing lake of valley, flooded in 1935 to create a long, and Ambleside, runs along the high fells Haweswater was the highest natural lake curving body of water running south-west on the west side of the valley. in the Lake District at 211 metres. to north-east. It is a tranquil, less visited corner of the Lake District, lying on the There was also some monastic At the start of their famous walking tour region’s north-east edge. Its lack of farms influence in Haweswater because of in 1799, Wordsworth and Coleridge and inbye grazing along the reservoir’s the proximity of Shap Abbey which stayed at Bampton, the village at the entire length lends most of Haweswater a was founded in 1191. Nearby is foot of Haweswater. Both men walked sense of wilderness. Lowther Castle, historic seat of the along the shore of the old lake and over Lowther family, the dominant family the passes into Longsleddale and then The head of the valley is dominated by in Westmorland, and home to 600 Kentmere. Haweswater’s Kidsty Pike Branstree, Harter Fell, Mardale Ill Bell, hectares of landscaped parkland and subsequently features in Wordsworth’s High Street and Kidsty Pike, and features grounds. Grade I listed Askham Hall to 1800 poem ‘The Brothers’: “On that tall the tarns of Small Water and Blea Water, the east is another example of a fine pike (It is the loneliest place of all these the deepest mountain tarn in the Lake designed landscape and formal gardens. hills) There were two springs which District. At the other end, the valley bubbled side by side As if they had been opens out into the broad and gentle Apart from a little copper mining, slate made that they might be Companions for limestone Lowther Valley. Thomas quarrying and charcoal production, each other: the huge crag Was rent with West in his ‘Guide to the Lakes’ the only significant industry to impact lightning – one hath disappeared; The described Haweswater as a “sweet the valley over the centuries is water other, left behind, is owing still”. but unfrequented lake” and “most extraction in the form of the reservoir. pleasantly elegant”. The Haweswater Valley area is the The early farming landscape in the only valley area in the Lake District Although the flooding of Haweswater main valley of Haweswater was lost with no National Trust land ownership. has hidden any traces of prehistoric when the small hamlet of Mardale, However, United Utilities, the private settlement in the valley bottom, there is with its church and Dun Bull Inn, water company, which has inherited evidence of Bronze Age activity on higher was flooded by the Manchester the Manchester Corporation estate, is ground, including standing stones, burial Corporation. Up until that time, assisted in its management of the estate cairns and a hillfort at Castle Crag. The the inn was famous for its autumnal by the Royal Society for the Protection of highest Roman road in England, known as shepherds’ meet. Birds.

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