Human Cultural Landscapes of the Lake District

Introdution

Created By:

Created By:

Location: Newlands (Cat Bells)

Instructions

Aims :

To inculcate an appreciation of the Lake District landscape as a highly humanised landscape. To indicate with field examples some of the main land use conflicts which impinge on that landscape. To demonstrate on a half-day fell walk to First Year students how unfit many of them have become.

Objectives :

• to ascend Cat Bells and Maiden Moor without losing too many students to exhaustion, vertigo, etc. en route,
• to teach the field recognition of evidence of former metalliferous mining,
• to demonstrate the possibilities of field evidence of place-names, settlement patterns, and field boundaries as contributions to an explanation of changed landscapes,
• to try and make students reflect on the positive and negative contributions to the Lakeland landscape of afforestation, water gathering, and tourism/recreation in a national park context.

TOPICS - OBSERVATIONS - DISCUSSION POINTS :

Geology/Geomorphology background - Astride the major geological divide of the Lakes District. To the N. are Skiddaw Slates; to the S. are the Borrowdale Volcanic Series. This contrast gives rise to contrasting scenery with smoother slopes and less differential weathering to the N. More rugged landscapes to the S.

Glaciation has left much impact - Borrowdale erratics, U-shaped valley of Borrowdale, hanging valley of Watendlath, over-deepened Lake Derwentwater, glacial moraines.

Former Mining Activity - Area around Keswick, Derwentwater, and Newlands was the scene of much metalliferous mining activity in the past - lead, silver, graphite, copper were all worked. Recently only green slate at Honister Pass. Graphite worked for 500 years at Seathwaite for medecines, dyes, lead pencils. Copper in Skiddaw Slates Series. Ores from Newlands Valley and Borrowdale to smelter at Brigham, east of Keswick from late 16th Century. Initially smelted by charcoal, later coal. Newlands valley - in 156l the Society for the Mines Royal was formed to exploit Goldscope Mine and Dale Head Mine. German mining "adventurers" brought in. Ore taken by packhorse to Copperheap Bay on lakeside and then shipped across to Keswick. Newlands Valley produced copper and lead sporadically until end of 19th. Century - exhaustion and foreign competition. Lead produced in the Derwentwater Mines. Lead ores in an igneous dyke on side of Cat Bells (Brandelhow Mine). Production peak in mid-19th Century when up to 80 employed. Closed in 1864. Landscape scars remain plus subtle influences on the settlement pattern. Also much associated destruction of the natural woodland for charcoal.

Settlement History

Placename evidence strong. Celtic placenames exist e.g. Derwent. Also Bede mentions St. Herbert's Island in lake. Scandinavian placenames dominate in Borrowdale e.g. thwaite meaning a clearing, as in Seathwaite, Stonethwaite. Suggests that Scandinavian settlers cleared original woodland.

In 1209 A.D. most of Borrowdale acquired by Cistercian monastery of Furness Abbey. Practised large scale sheep farming e.g. Grange in Borrowdale. Medieval documentary evidence suggests that most local settlements already in existence by early 13th Century.

Up to early 19th. Century Lakeland agriculture was fairly self-reliant, growing cereals,etc. Field systems suggest this as do 18th. Century topographical writings. High fell used as summer pastures. Placename booth evokes this as does saetr or sater meaning "summer settlement" e.g. Seatoller. Some upland grazing enclosed from late 18th. Century as indicated by rectangular field patterns.

So, 1000 years of farming have cleared woodland, cleared stones and boulders, drained marshes, channelled the rivers and generally 'humanised' the landscape. May well have also affected area's physical landscape.

Forestry

In the late 18th-early 19th. Century afforestation began as a response to the demand for timber from the mining and industrial areas of West Cumberland. Already, earlier, Wordsworth had criticised the use of exotic species in new timber plantations.

In 1919 the Forestry Commission was established. Some of its early plantations, as around Thirlmere, were criticised as aesthetically unpleasing.

4 main and largely peripheral Forestry Commission forests are found in Lakeland. e.g. Thornthwaite Forest to W. of Newlands Valley; Grizedale Forest in the S. Now some attempt to mix the species planted. Since 1936 the Commission agreed not to acquire land within the Central Fells area. So what might appear to be the most 'natural' wildscape areas are the result of a compromise between the agents of landscape change.

Water Catchments

Another theme in the Lakes' landscape is water gathering, though not in the Borrowdale area. Thirlmere, Haweswater and now Windermere are controlled for water provision, originally for Manchester Corporation. There arose much contoversy over water control, flooding, and associated re-afforestation and the restriction of public access in what became a National Park - a conflict of land and resource uses.

Tourism

Tourism has late 18th.-early 19th. Century origins as improved and turnpike roads allowed access. It was also made fashionable by the 'Romantic'movement in literature with writers like Thomas Gray, William Gilpin, William Wordsworth, and others popularising the scenery and fellwalking.

The railway came to Windermere in 1847 and to Keswick in 1865. Access was thus improved. Back in 1810 Wordsworth had advanced the first tentative proposals for a Lakes District National Park - "a sort of national property in which evry man has a right and an interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy." In 1951 the Lakes National Park was designated. It is not regarded as a landscape museum but rather as a living landscape which remains largely privately owned, except for National Trust, Forestry Commission, etc. Since then the Lakes Planning Board has greatly influenced the landscape's evolution or lack of such change. It has promoted the continuation of hill-farming, has limited housing developments, and has kept power-lones, aqueducts, ets. underground.

The National Trust now own about a quarter of the Lakes District. Some of this land is open access as lakeside walks or in the high fells and peaks. Much National Trust land is under tenant farming as the Trust owns about 80 working farms and more than 250 houses and cottages let to local farmers and residents. Beatrix Potter was an early local supporter of the National Trust and bequeathed it 14 farms and >4000 acres of land. The Trust's first property in the Lakes was Brandlehow Park (1902) giving access to lakeside walks by Derwentwater. Now the Trust's many access areas in the Lakes help to meet the recreational demands of millions of visitors a year.

Recreational pressure is now a problem e.g. second homes, suggested one way road systems, at least in summer, footpath erosion, etc. The question of some form of rationing of access has been raised.