Borrowdale

For other uses, see Borrowdale (disambiguation).

Borrowdale
250px Rosthwaite
Borrowdale  Borrowdale shown within Cumbria
Population	417 (2011)
Civil parish	Borrowdale
District	Allerdale
Shire county	Cumbria
Region	North West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Keswick
Postcode district	CA12 5
Dialling code	017687
Police	Cumbria
Fire	Cumbria
Ambulance	North West
EU Parliament	North West England
UK Parliament	Workington
List of places UK England Cumbria

Derwent Water in Borrowdale at dusk

File:Derwent-water.jpg

Southern aspect of Derwent Water and fells

Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England.

Borrowdale lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland, and is sometimes referred to as Cumberland Borrowdale in order to distinguish it from another Borrowdale in the historic county of Westmorland.

Geography

The valley rises in the central Lake District and runs north carrying the River Derwent into the lake of Derwent Water. The waters of the River have their origins over a wide area of the central massif of the Lake District north of Esk Hause and Stake Pass, including draining the northern end of Scafell including Great End, the eastern side of the Dale Head massif, the western part of the Central Fells and all the Glaramara ridge. Near Rosthwaite the side valley of Langstrath joins the main valley from Seathwaite before the combined waters negotiate the narrow gap known as the Jaws of Borrowdale. Here it is flanked by the rocky crags of Castle Crag and Grange Fell. The valley then opens out around Grange before the river empties into Derwent Water, overlooked by Catbells, Skiddaw and Walla Crag.

The valley lends its name to the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, a geological development from the Ordovician period. This rock makes up most of the mountains at the head of Borrowdale, including Scafell Pike and Great Gable.

The B5289 road runs down the full length of the valley, and at the southern end crosses the Honister Pass to Buttermere.

Government

The civil parish of Borrowdale covers a considerable area around the valley, including the southern half of Derwent Water. It includes the settlements of Grange, Rosthwaite, Seathwaite, Seatoller, Stonethwaite and Watendlath. It lies entirely within the Lake District National Park. At the time of the 2001 census the parish had a population of 438 living in 137 households, reducing in the 2011 Census to a population of 417 in 128 households.

For local government purposes the civil parish forms part of the district of Allerdale within the county of Cumbria. It is within the Workington constituency of the United Kingdom Parliament, and the North West England constituency of the European Parliament.

Economy

The valley is a very popular tourist location, with hotels, guesthouses, holiday cottages, bed and breakfasts, youth hostels and campsites, catering for the lowland visitor as well as the hill-walker who can choose from a very wide range of popular mountains, including all the above-mentioned fells as well as England's highest, Scafell Pike.

Some time prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered near the Seathwaite hamlet in Borrowdale parish. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid and it could easily be sawed into sticks, and so the pencil industry was born in nearby Keswick. This was and remains the only deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.

Borrowdale in literature

In the first of Hugh Walpole's series of four novels about the Herries family, Rogue Herries, Borrowdale is the site of a fictional house called Herries, the home of Francis Herries, the protagonist of this novel. Subsequent novels in the series are also largely set in Borrowdale. The valley and its surrounding mountains are described in sympathetic detail. Walpole himself had a house at Catbells overlooking Derwent Water from 1924 until his death in 1941.

See also

• Listed buildings in Borrowdale