Lakes of the Lake District

It is a misconception that the Lake District has "lakes." It is much more than that. If you go by name alone it has only one lake, Bassenthwaite Lake. Semantics aside, the Lake District does has more than one lake. In fact it has multiple lakes of different sizes in the form of meres, waters and tarns, dotted throughout this rugged, yet beautiful landscape. These words are synonymous with the bodies of water that were born is this wide open land, either by glacial withdrawal or by human intervention.

Thanks to the last glacial period of 10,000 years ago, the retreating ice left us with glacially eroded valleys that formed the lake district we see today. Not only the ice, but people too, are responsible for changing the landscape. Haweswater and Thirlmere are reservoirs, although the former was once a natural lake. It was dammed to raise the water level in a bid to supply fresh water for the people of Manchester, at a price that flooded two Cumbrian villages, now lost to the murky darkness. 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 after the Peak District, which were both formed in 1951.

The larger of the lakes usually carry the suffix of mere or water, whilst the humble tarn is usually reserved for the smaller bodies of water. However, there are some tarns larger than lakes, just to confuse matters. An example of this is evident in Blea Water (a tarn) being slightly lager than Elter Water, which is the smallest of the lakes. Each body of water, large and small, encompassed by neighbouring fells, woodland and moors, bestow a natural beauty individual in character. One of the best ways to experience this is on foot.

Name origins

Mere

Mere: Pool, small lake, pond. From Old English mere meaning "sea, ocean; lake, pool, pond, cistern," from Proto-Germanic mari. Also from:

• Old Norse: marr
• Old Saxon: meri → "sea"
• Middle Dutch: → maer / Dutch: meer → "lake, sea, pool"
• Old High German: mari / German: meer → "sea"
• Gothic: marei → "sea," mari-saiws → "lake"

The source of these come from the Proto-Indo-European root word mori, meaning "body of water." The larger sense of "sea, or arm of the sea" has been obsolete since Middle English. Mere in this instance refers to the names Buttermere, Grasmere, Windermere, Kentmere, which are recorded from the late 12th or 13th century. The term "water" is used more often for the larger of the lakes.

Water

• Water:

Name	Type	Length	Width	Surface area	Depth	Elevation	Infow	Outflow	Islands	Notes
Bassenthwaite Lake		4 mi (6.4 km)	0.8 mi (1.3 km)	1.98 sq mi (5.1 km2)	70 ft (21 m)	223 ft (68 m)	River Derwent Newlands Beck	River Derwent	0
Buttermere
Coniston Water
Crummock Water	Ribbon	2.5 mi (4.0 km)	0.6 mi (0.97 km)		140 ft (43 m)	315 ft (96 m)	Buttermere Dubs	River Cocker	6
Derwent Water
Elterwater
Ennerdale Water
Esthwaite Water
Grasmere
Haweswater
Loweswater
Rydal Water
Thirlmere
Ullswater
Wast Water
Windermere