Lakes of the Lake District

The lakes of the Lake District are creations of nature; beautiful and inspiring. The National Park is home to the deepest lake. It is also home to the four largest lakes in England and Wales. Set against a backdrop of Lakeland mountains, known locally as fells, one can easily conjure up thoughts of bygone authors and poets who so loved their craft; forever sealing a picturesque impression of a romanticised setting in one of the wettest parts of the UK.

Water is abundant here; reason alone for its green hues in summer and long, grey winters. There are hundreds of bodies of water in the Lake District, ranging in size from the largest lakes to the smallest pools, many more than most people would ever care to visit. The popular destinations are what brings the masses here to break away from everyday routine. From hardcore hikers and cyclists to the casual, fair-weather day trippers, visitors to the area who explore this great outdoors, do so because its appeal draws them in, time and time again. The lakes are just one, albeit predominantly so, reason for this influx of people every year.

By name alone, the Lake district has only one lake of the 17 main lakes throughout the National Park – Bassenthwaite Lake, which is nestled in the northern region of the park's periphery. There is a general misconception that Windermere, the largest of the lakes, is prefixed with the word Lake to differentiate it from the small town of the same name. Lake Windermere or Windermere Lake are not official titles, but are used extensively as a means of identifying the lake instead of the town. This grammatical construct typifies the redundancy of the word lake, which is not needed due to mere already being present. Also, Windermere Town just sounds a little odd, with town being superfluous.

Although the Lake District has only one body of water with lake in the title, the remaining 16 of the big lakes are named with mere or water. These words are synonymous with the lakes born in this wide open land, either by glacial withdrawal or by human intervention.

Etymology
Before we move on, it is interesting to learn from where these words are derived. Lake District place names take a lot of influence from as well as. Some words follow a natural progression through time, others do not and can change dramatically with entirely different meanings. Words can also be cognate with, and influenced by, other languages. A simple appreciation of these can provide a broader understanding of the words we use today.

The three words lake, mere, and water all come from a Proto-Germanic background, however, lake is a little more complicated as it is a merger of two different words from French and English. The French lineage ascends back to Proto-Italic, which spawned the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish etc.) What is interesting, all three of these words ultimately refer to a "body of water" of some sort, with subtle variations depending on size and usage. Cognates are also strikingly similar as to be expected, which show how these words developed and changed through time to mean something similar to, or even the same as, their ancestor equivalent.

Rather than discuss this in length here, it is best if these are broken down into more detail separately.


 * Origin of the word "lake"
 * Origin of the word "mere"
 * Origin of the word "water"

Words prefixed with a * are  reconstructed words. This means they have not been directly attested, but instead are hypothesised to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Glacial origins
The term "ice age" can be somewhat ambiguous. The earth is in an ice age called the Quaternary glaciation, which began around 2.58 million years ago and has had many periods of glacial advance and retreat. We are still in this ice age, as suggested by the ice caps present at the poles. However, we are currently experiencing an interglacial or warmer period. In the UK this period is called the. This led to retreating ice that left us with glacially "plucked" and eroded valleys that formed the lake district we see today.

Plucking and abrasion
The whole process of ice excavation can be described in fairly simple terms, when in reality, it involves a complex set of stages working together. Essentially, the movement of glaciers' grinds and pulls apart the bedrock on which it sits. Dr Alan Smith's book, The Big Lakes of Lakeland, describes this process clearly, without over complicating an already complex set of processes. With nowhere else to go except to follow the flow of ice, the broken pieces of rock were then transported as the ice moved along the valleys, in the case of the Lake District, radially in an outward direction from a central core. This core was so thick that maybe only the tips of the highest peaks of Scafell, Bowfell, and Great Gable were visible. The Last Glacial Maximum was approximately 22,000 years ago and up to that point in time, the ice had been steadily increasing until it reached its maximum, hence the name. All the big lakes were excavated by the ice during this Last Glacial Maximum, a segment of the Last Glacial Period, which encompassed a timeframe between 115,000 - 11,700 years ago. By 13,550 years ago, the ice sheets had retreated and the "valley glaciers had melted away and a new landscape of ice scoured fells and lakes left impounded in the valley floors was revealed."

So, what is plucking? Plucking is a process that removes large fragments of rock under immense pressures and moves them to other locations, sometimes lengthy distances from their original position. This is similar to quarrying, except instead of explosives and heavy machinery, ice does all the hard work. For plucking to be most effective, Fracturing needs to take place. This is a separate process that weakens the bedrock along naturally occurring joints and fractures, prior to being broken up. As Dr Smith explains, these weaknesses in the rocks may be enough for the ice break away these weakened fragments. However, not all rocks were made equal, and because of this, harder and softer rocks are broken up differently. As the upper layers of bedrock are plucked, the lower layers of rock 'relaxes' and 'unloads' as the pressure of weight is relieved. This then results in the lower layers eventually fracturing and weakening for further plucking to take place. This cycle could repeat for many thousands of years.

Another process that aids plucking is the Entraining of rock fragments as they are pulled away by the ice. Abrasion occurs when these loose fragments are "incorporated into the flowing ice at the base of the glacier" where they become "tools to abrade and scrape the bedrock they pass over," effectively acting as a "rough file or piece of coarse sandpaper, wearing away at the valley floor." Plucking can remove more volume of rock than abrasion, but the two working together provides an effective system to radically redesign a landscape. Meltwater from crevasses can also aid plucking, with constant erosion from the movement of water. 'Warm glaciers' are those with a temperature close to zero degrees, or the melting point. Larger volumes of water provides a greater flow of ice across the bedrock, and an increase in speed in which the ice travels. This was the case with the lakes in Lakeland, although some were created with more complex processes, such as those with two basins: Windermere and Ullswater.

Human interference
The once ebb and flow of ice and, in much more recent times, people, continue to have an effect on the natural backdrop of the second oldest national park in England. The reservoirs of Haweswater and Thirlmere were once natural lakes. They were dammed to raise the water level in a bid to supply fresh water for the people of Manchester, at a price that flooded the valleys, damaging the flora and fauna within them.

List of the main lakes
The lakes have been immortalised in text and image by the very people, past and present, with a passion for this rugged landscape. The big lakes are the quintessence of Lakeland, and listed below are 17 bodies of water that give this National Park its name. How these are classified, one could rightly surmise, is by size. Whilst the humble tarn is usually reserved for the smaller bodies of water, size alone is not the only trait for the lakes. Some tarns are bigger than the smallest of the big lakes, for example, Burnmoor Tarn near Wast Water, and Seathwaite Tarn near the Old Man of Coniston, both of which are bigger than Elter Water and Brothers Water.

One could easily say that each of the lakes have their own distinctive character, companioned by the landscape in which they sit. Size, depth, inflows, outflows, location, and human intervention all play a vital role in our understanding of these expanses of water, which, seen from above, appear to radiate outwards from a central point near the fell of High Raise in Langdale.

Each lake below is the subject of a brief overview, with a link to the lake's main article (when these have been written).

Bassenthwaite Lake

 * Main article: Bassenthwaite Lake

Brothers Water

 * Main article: Brothers Water

Buttermere

 * Main article: Buttermere

Coniston Water

 * Main article: Coniston Water

Crummock Water

 * Main article: Crummock Water

Derwentwater

 * Main article: Derwentwater

Elter Water

 * Main article: Elter Water – The smallest of the lakes

Ennerdale Water

 * Main article: Ennerdale Water

Esthwaite Water

 * Main article: Esthwaite Water

Grasmere

 * Main article: Grasmere'

Haweswater

 * Main article: Haweswater (Reservoir)

Haweswater was once a much smaller natural lake, sitting against a backdrop of farmland and a diverse habitat for flora and fauna. A natural promontory called an arcuate delta, formed by sedimentary deposits from Measand Beck, almost divided the lake in two with only a narrow section called the straits separating the smaller basins of High Water and Low Water, evident in the old OS maps.

Due to Manchester’s increasing demand for drinking water, parliament granted the Manchester Corporation permission to dam the northern end of the lake, and create a water supply reservoir. This came at a cost to the long-time residents of the valley. The original water level of the lake was raised by 29 metres, the damming resulted in the relocation of the residents who lived in the villages of Mardale, Measand and a scattering of other farmsteads. Abandoned buildings were demolished by the Royal Engineers, including the Dun Bull Inn and Holy Trinity Church, but the drystone field boundary walls and the old chapel bridge still survive, seen when the water levels are unusually low.

Nature finds a way to recover and today, Haweswater is a haven for wildlife including red squirrels and small mountain ringlet butterflies. It is the highest lake in the National Park and the landowners, United Utilities, are working in partnership with the RSPB to ensure the area is protected for the future – see Wild Haweswater There is a circular walking route around the reservoir along with various trails through ancient woodland.

Loweswater

 * Main article: Loweswater

Rydal Water

 * Main article: Rydal Water

Thirlmere

 * Main article: Thirlmere (Reservoir)

Ullswater

 * Main article: Ullswater – The 2nd largest of the lakes

Wast Water

 * Main article: Wast Water – The deepest of the lakes

Windermere

 * Main article: Windermere – The largest of the lakes