60 Fun Facts About Lake District

The Lake District lies in which English county?

It is a mountainous region and national park in North West England, famed for its lakes, fells and literary associations.

What is the highest mountain in England, found in the Lake District?

It sits in a caldera left by ancient pyroclastic eruptions, and its summit plateau is fringed by crags on every side.

How high is England's highest mountain?

Until the early 1800s nobody knew it was England's highest; the Ordnance Survey first labelled it simply 'Sca-Fell Higher Top'.

Which is the longest and largest lake in England?

It runs about 11 miles from Waterhead to Newby Bridge, holds 18 islands and has been a tourist magnet since the railway arrived in 1847.

Which is the deepest lake in England, at 79 metres?

Its famous screes tumble into the water below Illgill Head, and its head is ringed by Great Gable, Lingmell and England's highest peak.

In what year was the Lake District National Park established?

It came a month after the Peak District, the first UK national park, and was extended east by 3% in 2016.

The Lake District became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

The park covers 2,362 square kilometres, though Kendal and the Furness peninsulas lie outside its boundary.

Only one of the Lakeland lakes is officially called a 'Lake' rather than a mere, water or tarn. Which?

All the others are meres, waters or tarns; 'water' is the most common ending and 'mere' the rarest.

How many major lakes does the Lake District contain?

Most fill U-shaped glacial valleys, and pairs such as Buttermere and Crummock Water were once single lakes divided by silt.

Seathwaite in Borrowdale holds what soggy distinction?

It averages about 3,300 mm of rain a year, and nearby Sprinkling Tarn tops 5,000 mm.

On average, snow falls on Helvellyn on how many days a year?

The fell tops also see around 100 days of gales a year, against just five in the sheltered valleys.

Which industry grew up in Keswick thanks to locally mined graphite?

Miners called the substance wad, black lead or plumbago; in the mid-19th century the area also supplied half the world's textile bobbins.

In Neolithic times the Langdale Pikes were the site of a 'factory' producing what?

Langdale tuff axes have been found all over Britain, and some of the country's earliest stone circles are linked to the trade.

The Castlerigg stone circle near Keswick has been dated to roughly when?

Counts of its stones range from 38 to 42 depending on whether the small packing stones are included.

Which poet's 1810 Guide to the Lakes was especially influential in popularising the region?

By 1835 the guide had reached its fifth edition under a much longer title.

Wordsworth's 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' was inspired by daffodils on the shore of which lake?

He saw them in April 1802 on the way home from visiting his friend Thomas Clarkson.

Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey are known collectively as what?

Southey lived in Keswick for forty years and Wordsworth succeeded him as Poet Laureate in 1843.

Dove Cottage in Grasmere, home to William and Dorothy Wordsworth from 1799 to 1808, was originally what?

It was recorded as the Dove and Olive inn in 1617; Thomas De Quincey moved in after the Wordsworths left.

How much annual rent did the Wordsworths pay for Dove Cottage when they moved in on 20 December 1799?

The landlord was John Benson of Grasmere; the Wordsworth Trust bought the cottage in 1890 and opened it as a museum the next year.

Where is Wordsworth buried?

He spent sixty of his eighty years in the Lakes; Hartley Coleridge, the poet's son, lies near him.

Beatrix Potter bought which farm at Near Sawrey in 1905 with the proceeds of her books?

She later married the Hawkshead solicitor William Heelis and became a prize-winning breeder of Lakeland fell sheep.

On her death in 1943, Beatrix Potter left over 4,000 acres and a dozen farms to which organisation?

Its founding secretary, Hardwicke Rawnsley, had been vicar of Wray and a formative influence on her.

Which hardy Lakeland sheep breed did Beatrix Potter champion?

About 95% of the 50,000 or so live within 14 miles of Coniston, which left them badly exposed in the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Which dale in the south-west of the district was Wordsworth's favourite?

Also called the Duddon Valley, it lies well away from the busy central lakes.

The Lakeland sheep-counting rhyme 'Yan tan tethera' survives from which linguistic roots?

It is still taught in some local schools; 'fell' and 'tarn', by contrast, are Viking imports.

The Lakeland words 'fell', 'tarn' and 'howe' come from which language?

Viking settlers brought fjallr for mountain and tjern for a small lake; 'thwaite' and 'beck' are from the same source.

Alfred Wainwright's seven-volume Pictorial Guide covers how many Lakeland fells?

He drew and hand-lettered every page himself between 1952 and 1966, at about a page per evening.

Wainwright devised which 182-mile footpath crossing the Lake District from west to east?

It runs from the Irish Sea to the North Sea and remains popular today.

What was Wainwright's day job in Kendal from 1948 to 1967?

The Blackburn-born accountant took a pay cut in 1941 to move closer to the fells.

Where were Wainwright's ashes scattered by his widow Betty?

He was a lifelong Blackburn Rovers fan and a founder member of the club's supporters' association.

Which small lake lies enclosed between Helvellyn's Striding Edge and Swirral Edge?

It is about 25 metres deep and was dammed in the 19th century to supply the Greenside Mine; the artist Charles Gough died on Striding Edge in 1805.

What unusual feat was achieved on the summit of Helvellyn in 1926?

Since 2020 the summit and its two edges have been managed by the John Muir Trust.

What was Donald Campbell's teddy-bear mascot, found floating after his fatal 1967 Coniston Water crash, called?

The pilot's helmet was also recovered, but Royal Navy divers gave up the search for his body after two weeks.

Donald Campbell set a world water speed record of 202 mph on which Lake District lake in 1955?

The German Emperor Wilhelm II had toured the same lake in 1912 aboard the MY Raven.

Who led the diving team that recovered Bluebird K7 and Campbell's body from the lake bed in 2001?

The main hull came up in March and Campbell's remains, still in his blue overalls, in May.

Kendal Mint Cake owes its existence to a happy accident in 1869, when Joseph Wiper left what overnight?

It turned cloudy and set solid; his great-nephew later marketed it to expeditions including Shackleton's.

The Traditional Cumberland sausage, protected by the EU in 2011, must be sold in what form?

The pork is chopped rather than minced and the seasoning is dominated by black and white pepper.

In which year was Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons first published?

The Walker children were named after the Altounyan family he taught to sail; the dinghy Mavis is displayed in the Ruskin Museum.

Which Victorian critic spent his final years at Brantwood, a house beside Coniston Water?

His assistant W. G. Collingwood lived nearby and wrote a Norse-era novel, Thorstein of the Mere.

Hugh Walpole's home Brackenburn sits on the slopes of which fell above Derwent Water?

He lived there from 1924 until his death in 1941, tracing a fictional Lakeland family across two centuries.

In Pride and Prejudice, which character is 'excessively disappointed' at not getting to tour the Lakes?

Her aunt and uncle Gardiner cut the trip short and take her to Derbyshire instead, where she meets Darcy at Pemberley.

Which endangered fish has been found only in Derwent Water since 2008?

Warming water and algae threaten it, so stocks have been moved to higher lakes; the schelly and Arctic charr are the region's other rare species.

A pair of which raptors nested in the Lake District in 2001, the first for over 150 years?

England's last golden eagles also lived in the Lakes; the male was last seen in 2015.

The Lake District holds England's largest population of which mammal?

The UK has an estimated 140,000 of them against about 2.5 million greys.

Which two linked passes are famous for gradients that challenge cyclists?

They connect Little Langdale with Eskdale by way of Cockley Beck.

What speed limit for powered craft was enforced on England's largest lake from March 2005?

The bylaw effectively ended water-skiing and powerboat racing on the lake where Norman Buckley had set records in the 1950s.

What is the name of the largest, privately owned island in England's largest lake?

It sits opposite Bowness, the only town directly on the shore; the inland village that took the lake's name did not exist before the railway.

Which playwright began his first hit comedy, named after a Lakeland lake, in summer 1891?

The MV Tern, still cruising the lake, was launched the same year.

In 2007 ITV viewers voted which Lake District spot 'Britain's Favourite View'?

The lake also hides an illicit underwater 'gnome garden' placed by divers, reportedly moved below the 50-metre police diving limit.

Which travel writer's 1698 ride over Kirkstone Pass is among the earliest recorded tourist visits to the Lakes?

Defoe followed in 1724 and called Westmorland 'the wildest, most barren and frightful' county in England.

Thomas West's 1778 Guide to the Lakes listed 'stations'; what were they?

Buildings were put up at some of them; the remains of Claife Station survive on the western shore of the largest lake.

Which upland area became the UK's first national park, a month before the Lakes in 1951?

The Lake District followed on 9 May 1951 and kept its original boundaries until 2016.

Which 868-metre Northern Fell is also known as Saddleback?

The Northern Fells sit inside a circle about 13 km across between Keswick and Caldbeck.

The Lake District is the UK's second-largest national park after which one?

It is the largest of the thirteen national parks in England and Wales.

The narrow-gauge steam railway from Ravenglass climbs into which valley?

It runs as far as Dalegarth station near Boot, giving walkers access to the Western Fells.

Roughly what share of the national park's land is owned by the National Trust?

Most land is privately owned, with about 55% registered as agricultural.

Which water company owns about 8% of the land in the Lake District National Park?

The National Park Authority itself owns just 3.9%.

The successful 2017 World Heritage listing of the Lake District was which attempt?

Two bids failed in the 1980s and another in 2012 before it was listed as a cultural landscape.

The 2016 extension of the national park added land around which river?

The 3% extension pushed the boundary east towards the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

For which quality was the A591 at Grasmere short-listed in the 2011 Google Street View awards?

The road runs north-west from Kendal through Windermere to Keswick.