Beautiful Lake District Villages

Beautiful Lake District Villages

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About 5 miles (8 km) south of Sedbergh, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, this is a village with a distinctive character. The streets are narrow and cobbled, and cottages roofed with stone slabs cluster round the church, which has Jacobean box pews and shiny brass memorials to the Sedgwick family. Adam Sedgwick, one of England's great pioneer geologists, was the son of an eighteenth century vicar schoolmaster. He is commemorated in the village by a fountain made from a huge block of Shap granite. The Dales are noted for their sheep, and the emblem of the National Park is a Swaledale ram. For years the knitters of Dent were famous for their home produced stockings, caps and gloves.

This is an attractive red sandstone village 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Appleby. With its spacious green it is typical of the string of fellside villages which reach from Melmerby, east of Penrith, south to Murton and Hilton near Appleby. In common with several others, Dufton was influenced by the Quaker owned London Lead Company. Some villages gained chapels or meeting rooms and in 1858 Dufton was given a new water sup ply, of which the splendid horse trough in the middle of the village is evidence. St Cuthbert's church, about one mile (1.6 km) to the northwest, has had a rector since 1293, but the present structure dates from 1794. It is a pleasant open church with attractive windows. On a good day the views from the churchyard towards the Pennine fells are splendid.

This quiet village 2 miles (3 krn) southwest of Cockermouth has a small Quaker meeting house. In 1768 John Dalton was born here to a Quaker family. He became one of the great est theoretical scientists of his day. By the age of thirteen he was teaching at a local school, leaving to run his own school in Kendal before moving on to Manchester and greater achievements. Fletcher Christian was born in 1764 at Moorland Close, just outside the village. He achieved notoriety through his part in the mutiny of the Bounty.

The town is similar to Cockermouth, having a wide main street overlooked at one end by a ruined Norman castle to which there is free access at all times.Elterwater and Chapel Stile The two villages stand barely a mile (1.6 km) apart beside the road from Skelwith Bridge to the head of Great Langdale. Here the valley narrows and on either side is much evidence of past and present slate quarrying.

This provided the impetus for the growth of the villages, which expanded again with the establishment of a gunpowder factory on the site of what is now a large timeshare development. Very few quarry workers now live in the valley and it is tourism which sustains the economy. Chapel Stile has Langdale church and a local cooperative store, but narrow roads restrict access and parking. Elterwater, with the open space of the common at its approach and the village green in the centre, is more accessible.

Gilsland, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Brampton, is a border village: one side of the river is in Cumbria, the other in Northumberland! In Victorian times Gilsland was a spa. The Spa Hotel was formerly a miners' conva lescent home which offered a prescription of sulphur, springwater and fresh air.

About the Author:

Adrian vultur writes for Windermere spa hotel



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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