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 (tautology) 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 Old Norse as well as Old English. 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 Flandrian interglacial. This led to retreating ice that left us with glacially "plucked" and eroded valleys that formed the lake district we see today.

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

Further reading

• Smith, Alan (2012). The Big Lakes of Lakeland. The Landscapes of Cumbria No.5. Keswick: Rigg Side Publications
• Smith, Alan (2014). The Smaller Lakes and Tarns of Lakeland. The Landscapes of Cumbria No.6. Keswick: Rigg Side Publications
• Whaley, Diana (2006). A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names. English Place-Name Society. School of English Studies, University of Nottingham