The Lakeland Fell that is all over Britain

Lingmoor is a 3 mile ridge of moderately high ground that separates Great Langdale from Little Langdale. But the chances are that even if you have never been to either of the Langdale Valleys, or even set foot in the Lake District, you will have seen fragments of Lingmoor. They are to be found all over Britain as well as further afield. A friend of mine came across some in New York!

Lingmoor Fell

 So why should tiny pieces of this small lakeland fell be scattered so widely? The effects of glaciation perhaps? Or maybe a prehistoric volcanic explosion? The answer is a little more simple than that. It has to do with a man named Thomas Farynor.

Few people have heard of Thomas Farynor, but most are familiar with the events that occurred in the kitchen of his house in the early hours of September 2nd 1666. If you are still struggling, maybe I ought to reveal that Mr Farynor and his family lived in Pudding Lane, London, and it was in his bakery that the Great Fire of London started.

The Great Fire of 1666 was not the first conflagration in the capital, nor was London the only city to suffer the fate of destruction from burning. It didn't, as might be supposed, signal a change in the law to prevent the kind of conditions that led to the rapid spread of the fire. There was no need to change the law in favour of building houses from stone instead of wood, and roofing them with either tiles or slate, instead of thatch. Such laws already existed. What was needed was a change in attitude of those in authority.

No law can ever be effective if it is not enforced, and the attitude of those in charge of London in the 17th century can best be demonstrated by the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. It is tempting to wonder why Mr Bloodworth had been knighted, since his ineptitude in the face of catastrophe was astounding. His knighthood clearly was not for decisiveness or quick thinking, because he looked at the fire, dismissed it as trivial and went back to bed.

No, Bloodworth's knighthood had little to do with his abilities as a leader of men, and everything to do with money. He rose to prominence as a result of a successful trading career, a fact which gives further indication as to the priorities of the day. He was not alone. Much of London's population was engaged in some kind of trading or manufacture. Houses were cramped together, with trade being carried out on the ground floor, and living quarters above. The streets were polluted with waste, and there was little regard for safety. Fires were commonplace, and deemed an inevitable hazard, to be dealt with on a community basis when they occurred.

The Great Fire was clearly the wake up call that the city required, and when London was rebuilt in the years after the fire, more attention was paid to ensuring that the long ignored building regulations were adhered to. Other places followed suit. Laws were properly enforced on a nationwide scale. Which is where Lingmoor fell in the Lake District comes in.

Lingmoor, along with the fells in it's vicinity, has extensive reserves of good quality slate, perfect for the manufacture of roofing tiles. The only problem for the early quarry owners was transporting the finished product to other parts of the country. For the first 100 years or so of their existence, the slate was shipped out over Wrynose and Hardknott Passes to the port of Whitehaven via pack horse,  a slow and laborious method of distribution that resulted in production being barely able to keep up with demand.  Then came the railway age, and with it a golden period in the slate roofing tile industry. Production soared, and as more and more quarries were opened up, so whole settlements grew in prosperity and importance. The villages of Chapel Stile, Elterwater and Little Langdale thrived.

Abandoned quarry building on the side of Lingmoor Fell, with Crinkle Crags and Bowfell in the background.

Any fell walker familiar with Lingmoor knows that the area is littered with the remains of the slate quarrying industry. From spoil heaps to abandoned buildings, the evidence that this was once a thriving industrial landscape is there for all to see. But not all the workings are abandoned. On the North Eastern flank of the fell, close to the village of Elterwater, the jack-hammer has replaced the chisel. Modern lorries now do the work of a hundred pack horses. Production of slate tiles is in full swing, and the demand is as high as ever. From kitchen worktops to polished floors in office block entrance halls, Elterwater slate is still a popular building material the world over.

 

This video of the walk from Elterwater to Brown Howe, the summit of Lingmoor Fell, actually goes through the modern quarry. Filmed on an unusually  hot day in September  2016, it shows how the modern landscape has been shaped by the quarrying industry, and how both tourism and quarrying live and thrive side by side in the 21st century.

When a packhorse bridge isn't a packhorse bridge.

The village of Little Langdale is very much a two road town. A tiny collection of cottages, one inn, a couple of farms, and one of the most famous bridges in the Lake District. Slaters Bridge spans the River Brathay close to Little Langdale Tarn. From its appearance it would not be unreasonable to believe that it is one of the best surviving pack horse bridges in the region. A monument to the days when trains of pack horses, laden with a wide range of goods from wool to cooking implements, precious metal to food, made their way through the mountain passes, linking tiny farming settlements like Little Langdale with the coast.

Slaters Bridge, Little Langdale

But as with much of the Lake District things are not all they seem. It is true that Slaters Bridge resembles a pack horse bridge in many respects. It is narrow. Pack horse bridges did not need to be any wider than the horse. It also has very low parapets, a key feature of the pack horse bridge. Having low parapets served two purposes. It allowed safe passage of the packs the horse was carrying, as very often the horse and pack combined was actually wider than the bridge; and it also prevented the bridge being washed away in times of flood. So far, so good.

It is when you consider the position  of the bridge in relation to the ancient roads and trackways that it becomes obvious that it was not built with pack horses in mind, at least, not the kind that ferried goods over the mountains. It is about a quarter of a mile upstream from the known pack horse route. And it crosses the river in an area that floods readily, making all year access to it difficult.

The clue to the true purpose of this bridge lies in its name, and its proximity to the slate quarries on the south side of the river. Slate quarrying in these parts dates back to the middle part of the 17th century, and the introduction of stone or clay tiles as a roofing material. The events that triggered the growth of the quarries occurred some two to three hundred miles away, in towns and cities like London, Northampton and Warwick.

Most  people have heard of the Great Fire of London, but the capital was not the only centre of population to suffer the fate of total destruction by burning. Overcrowding, poor waste removal and early industry combined to turn the wooden houses of many towns into potential tinderboxes. The introduction of stone built buildings, with slate or tile being used as the roofing material, did not stop individual properties from catching fire, but it did prevent the fire spreading out of control and the whole town from being engulfed.

In the latter part of the 17th century the quarries thrived, and Slaters Bridge came into being. In keeping with local tradition it was built in the same style as a pack horse bridge. There was no other requirement. It needed to be no wider than the width of one horse, nor did it need to have parapets. It served just two purposes. The first was to enable the men working the quarries access to their working environment, and the second was to allow the carriage of the horse drawn sleds that were used to convey the slate to the dressing sheds in Little Langdale.

It says much for the durability of the basic design, as well as the materials with which is was constructed, that over 300 years later it is still as sturdy as the day it was built, and although the traffic it is required to carry is less demanding, it remains a well loved, and more importantly, well used relic of the Lake District's industrial past.

Lest we forget

One of the prettiest places in the Lake District is Loughrigg Tarn. It's peaceful waters attract many visitors, for all sorts of reasons. Some simply linger beside the water's edge, enjoying the peace and watching the plentiful wildlife. Others come to fish, or canoe, and some, like the couple that I saw whilst walk checking this week, come to swim.

Loughrigg Tarn. Peaceful and inviting.

 Now it has to be said that this particular swimming trip was not an impromptu affair. Both swimmers were adorned in wet suits. They clearly knew what they were doing, which is important because although the waters of tarns like Loughrigg look inviting, hidden dangers lurke beneath the surface.

Beside the shore of Loughrigg Tarn is a cross, upon which is the inscription " In memory of John Stanley Skelton. Drowned 4th June 1960 whilst on holiday with Cowley Boys Grammar School". There is nothing ambiguous about the message here. The cross serves two purposes, one to commemorate the tragedy that unfolded here during a school trip, and the other to sound a warning to all those who might wish to venture into the lake to cool off.

One of the more interesting characters of Lake District folk lore is Jenny Green Teeth, (sometimes called Ginny Greenteeth, depending upon the region and dialect). Jenny Green Teeth is a witch that lives in various tarns in the region, most notably those small stretches of water which are generally covered in weed during the summer months. Jenny lives on pond weed, but has a particular liking for young children, which she devours with relish whenever she gets the chance. She lives on the bottom of the lake, and cannot be seen from the surface, but if young children venture into the water then Jenny grabs hold of their legs and drags them under the surface. Once she has a child in her grasp there is no escape.

It is not only children who are at risk. Adults, particularly the elderly, who are foolish enough to venture away from the shallows have been known to suffer the same fate. Jenny Green Teeth may live on pond weed, but she is certainly strong enough to drag a fully grown person to a watery grave.

In the north of England, the legend of Jenny Green Teeth is based on the need to make children aware of the dangers of Duckweed, which carpets the surface of small ponds and tarns, making them particularly treacherous to the unwary. However, as the memorial at Loughrigg Tarn shows, it is not only small, duckweed covered ponds that represent a danger.

Open water swimming is becoming more popular in the UK. Events like the Big Swim on Windermere have attracted large entries from people of all abilities. But, rather like those that take to the Lake District fells, open water swimmers need to have a healthy respect for the environment in which they carry out their hobby.If they do, then they are guaranteed a huge amount of pleasure, as the vareity of tarns and rivers available to them is unrivalled.