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Price:
£485 to £520 pw
Location:
Elterwater,
Ambleside,
Cumbria.
No.3 - LA22 9HT
Wistaria - LA22 9HP
WORLD HERITAGE STATUS
The Lake District has acheived World Heritage Status
Much of the credit for this prestigious Award rests with our ancestors in the way that they used the physical characteristics of the land to provide shelter, food and subsequently industry for sustainance without destroying any part of the characteristics in the process. Many of the features of this progression can be readily traced to the Langdale Valley and visitors can see many interesting indications there. The local stone, slate and timber was used to provide walls, houses barns and workshops, blending perfectly into the local landscape. In farming terms the local hardy Herdwick sheep graze the exposed upper Fells unsupervised due to the inherent hefting instinct leaving the protected land in the valley bottoms for more sheltered farming pursuits.
The local quarry industry provided attractive stone and slate products which soon became world famous and the increasing demand created a requirement for explosives to assist in the extraction. The remoteness of the valleys with the materials such as charcoal and sulphur to hand made an explosive factory feasible using water to power the grinding mills. Elterwater was the chosen site and using part of the flow of the Great Langdale Beck by construction of a Weir to ensure a flow, a series of mills were constructed and a factory set up to produce “gunpowder”. To help ensure a steady flow of water from the Beck, Stickle Tarn situated high in the Fells at the base of Pavey Arc, a popular walking and climbing area, was dammed to create a reserve supply of water released to supplement flow over the site when required - an early example of energy conservation - and relatively free. Although closed in the 1930’s these features are available to be seen and form a feature of the Langdale Estate (Timeshare) complex which subsequently utilised the site.
Modern transport and publicity increased the population of the visitors to the Lake District and much work is in hand to keep the Fells attractive by engineering paths to prevent erosion, and sympathetic education by youth groups to protect the environment.