Esthwaite Water

Esthwaite Water
Name Meaning		Lake by the eastern clearing
Name Origin		Old Norse Old English, Middle English
Inflows		Black Beck + multiple others
Outflows		Cunsey Beck
Max. Depth		15.5 metres (50 feet)
Surface Area		100 hectares (247 acres)
Catchment Area		17.1 km² (6.6 mi²)
No. of Islands		1
Access		Private / limited access
Historic County		Lancashire
Settlements		Hawkshead, Near Sawrey
Topo Map		OL7 Explorer
Coordinates		54.358902 , -2.9842575
OS Grid Ref.		SD361963
what3words		sandbags.eyelash.buzzing

Esthwaite Water is a privately-owned, picturesque lake, nestled between Windermere and Coniston Water in relatively lowland areas, set against a backdrop of beautiful, rolling hills, with coniferous and deciduous woodlands to the east, south and west. The 11th largest lake from our list has a surface area of 100 hectares (247 acres), 7 kilometres (4.35 miles) of shoreline, and has a maximum depth of 15.5 metres (50 feet). Historically, it used to be in Lancashire until 1974 when a major Government reform of the counties took place under the Local Government Act 1972. Lancashire lost all of its possession in the Lake District, and the ceremonial county of Cumbria became the new governing county.

Esthwaite Water Trout Fishery operates varied fishing experiences on the lake, offering boat and bank fishing, tuitions, self-drive boat cruises and osprey safaris. Farmland occupies much of the lakeside, except where the ground is taken over to wetland in relatively large pockets at Out Dubs Tarn to the south, and Priest Pot to the north. With this in mind, access to lake is very limited to the public. A circular route around the lake is possible by road only, with a small off-road section from Hawkshead to the lake’s northern fringe.

Etymology

There have been various spellings of Esthwaite since the 16th century, for example: Estwyth (1539), Eastthwaite (1625), the mere of Hawkshead Estwater (1537), Estthwaite Water (1565), Eastwait-water (1671), and the Ordnance Survey map from 1851 shows the present day version Esthwaite Water. The name also appears in Esthwaite Hall and Esthwaite Lodge. The simplest meaning of Esthwaite Water would be the lake by the eastern clearing, with the first and second elements coming from Old Norse, and the third from Old English. In an attempt to keep this fairly simple, especially with other connections to Brittonic, there are two (main) possible definitions of the first two elements.

• the eastern clearing – comes from Middle English est (east), that probably replaced Old Norse austr (east), and Old Norse þveit (clearing), which in modern day English is thwaite (clearing; forest land cleared for agriculture or habitation). Thwaite is a fairly common word and appears in many places across the Lake District
• the clearing where ash trees grow – comes from Old Norse eski/askr (ash trees) and þveit (clearing).
• The third element water comes from Old English wæter, which is probably influenced from Old Norse vatn (water, lake, river). This is the dominant term used for lake, which is seen in other lake names such as Elter Water, Haweswater, Crummock Water, Devoke Water, Derwentwater, Loweswater and Ullswater to name a few.

Esthwaite Water Trout Fishery. Image:Wikimedia Commons

Beatrix Potter

Esthwaite Water was London-born Helen Beatrix Potter’s favourite lake, which was handy given the proximity of her 17th-century writing retreat of Hilltop, a modest, picture-perfect farmhouse set within the beautiful village of Near Sawrey. Walking around the area, it’s easy to see how this was "the place that inspired her stories and her love for the Lake District." It is the quintessential rural Lake District, full of charm and character.

Nearby Moss Eccles Tarn was owned by Potter, and a short walk here can be taken along Stones Lane from the centre of the village. It is a tranquil place. The tarn is home to water lilies, brown trout, and the shores to the west and south are lined with coniferous and deciduous trees. Yet this tarn is relatively new. The tarns on Claife Heights are not of glacial origin, evidence of which comes from old Ordnance Survey maps where there is a distinct absence of water bodies. But this does not detract from the beauty of the place. Tarn Hows was once three smaller tarns, High Tarn, Middle Tarn, and Low Tarn, but a small dam at the south-west corner had created a larger tarn, the one we see today. This is one of the most visited tarns in Lakeland, so it proves that they do not need to be “natural” to be popular and enjoyed by millions of people.

Beatrix Potter owned a substantial amount of land, not just around Near Sawrey, but also at Hawkshead, Coniston, Little Langdale and many others. Hilltop, and 1638 hectares (4049 acres) of land were acquired by the National Trust under the will of Mrs W. Heelis (Beatrix Potter) on 1 June, 1944.

Geography

Esthwaite Water lies in a fairly open valley that was carved by a separate tongue of ice from the Langdale fells. The ice continued to excavate in a southerly direction before joining with the Windermere flow, south of Claife Heights. This openness gives a feeling of space from some of the various vantage points that offer fine views across the landscape in almost every direction. The lake has three peninsulas, Strickland Ees, on the West Bank, and Ees Wyke and Elter Holme on the south-east bank. The lake drains via Cunsey Beck, through Out Dubs Tarn and on to Windermere. Esthwaite’s catchment area is 17.1 square kilometres (6.6 square miles) and forms part of the larger catchment of Windermere, which is a hefty 230.5 square kilometres (89 square miles), the second largest of all Lakeland’s catchments, behind that of Bassenthwaite Lake’s catchment.

The principle villages are Hawkshead to the north of the Lake, and Near Sawrey to the south-east, with Grizedale Forest occupying huge swathes of the Furness Fells. Priests Pot is a small area of open water surrounded by this wetland. It is slowly transforming via a process called plant succession, where colonisation and infilling changes something from one state to another, in this case the water will eventually dry up and give way to woodland. This infilling process has occurred all over the Lake District, some more drastically than others. Hawkshead itself was developed on top of alluvium, the deposits of clay, silt, sand, and gravels that slowly infilled the northern extremes of the valley floor. Buttermere and Crummock Water was once a single, much larger lake, now separated by alluvial infilling. The same can be said for Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite Lake. Eventually, over extremely long periods of time, the landscape can change to the point it becomes unrecognisable.

September sunset over Esthwaite Water. Image:Wikimedia Commons

SSSI status

Esthwaite Water is nutrient rich and biologically productive, and present-day is generally agreed to be the most productive or eutrophic lake in the Lake District. Scientifically, a great deal is known about the lake and it’s environs. In 1987 the lake including Priest Pot and Out Dubs Tarn was given Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) status, which is protected under a conservation designation. On 7 November 1991 it was designated Ramsar site "on account of its diverse macrophyte community and the well developed hydrosere at the northern end of the lake." The SSSI covers an area of 152.8 hectares (377.6 acres). This designation is documented on Natural England's website where reasons for designating the SSSI can be seen in the 1987 citation, which states:

It is an example of a moderately nutrient rich (mesotrophic) lake, the most productive of the larger lakes in the Lake District and despite the fact that the waters are artificially nutrient enriched by sewage, it is one of the best examples of its kind in England and Wales. It has been studied intensively by the Freshwater Biological Association for over 45 years and the fen at its northern end adjacent to the inflow, North Fen National Nature Reserve, is famous for long term studies on plant community succession on lake margins (the hydrosere). The site includes the tarns of Priest Pot and Out Dubs....The complex of open water, fen and grassland communities within the site support a characteristic flora including examples of nationally rare and local species and have a range of breeding birds typical of these habitats.

The citation further mentions microscopic life, 120+ species of larger invertibrates and the broad selection of aquatic plants such as stonewort, pondweeds, shoreweeds, water leobelia, and white water lilies that grow alone the shoreline. Mention of the highly developed hydroseres at North Fen, Priests Pot and Out Dubs Tarn are of significance.

Similar hydroseres have developed at Priest Pot, and at Out Dubs Tarn the sequence continues to dry birch woodland and marshy grassland....Damp pastures and hay meadows separated by ditches and drains are present to the north of Priest Pot. In the main these have been improved and are included for water catchment reasons. However, in places a marshy grassland community has developed....Elsewhere, such as adjacent to the Cunsey Beck below Out Dubs, and to the west of Black Beck adjacent to Priest Pot, taller swards dominated by purple moor-grass...and a fen community with reed canary-grass contain typical marshland species....In addition to its botanical interest Esthwaite Water is of local importance for breeding birds. Great crested grebe, teal, tufted duck, red breasted merganser, pochard and sedge warbler all regularly breed within the site.

Aerial view of Esthwaite Water from the east looking towards the Coniston Fells. Image: Wikimedia Commons