Natural Beauty
The Borrowdale valley runs ten miles from its source high in the Scafell Mountains (977m) and its spectacular steep sides stretch down to Derwentwater at Keswick, providing one of the most vivid and exciting landscapes in Britain.
The three miles long and mile wide Derwentwater provides an excellent venue for sailing while remaining massively peaceful and tranquil. The spectacular Honister Pass connects Borrowdale and Buttermere Valleys. The latter containing the magnificent lakes of Buttermere, Crummock Water and Loweswater.
Lake Thirlmere is another renown lake in the area, though distinct from the others in that it was dammed at the turn of the twentieth century and supplies water to Manchester over 100 miles away via a network of tunnels, channels, and pipelines.
To the north and west of Keswick, however, it is the imposing bulk of Skiddaw, with Bassenthwaite Lake at its foot, which dominates the view. Tree lined fields give way to open heather and bracken covered moorland on the smooth slate rock as Skiddaw rises towards its summit. Meanwhile a main road runs along much of the course of Bassenthwaite allowing easy access.
Helvellyn is another deservedly famous mountain within easy reach of Keswick. The Striding Edge section of this mountain is one of the most popular, and also dangerous, bits of walking in the Lake District. There are so many routes to the summer of Helvellyn that it can be viewed as a range of peaks, all linked to each other, but many say that only a route via Striding Edge offers the true Helvellyn experience.
These Lake District fells provide the backdrop to the view from the village of Silloth, population 3000, which also looks out over the Solway Firth and faces the Southern Galloway. The spectacular views from Silloth were once captured by the celebrated landscape painter, J. M. W. Turner.
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