Aira Force is a

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

in the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, in the civil parish of

Matterdale Matterdale is a civil parish in the Lake District of Cumbria, England. It lies on the northern shore of Ullswater. The parish includes the settlements of Dockray, Matterdale End, Ulcat row, Watermillock and Wreay. It had a population of 526 ...

and the county of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

. The site of the waterfall is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

Description

The stream flowing over the waterfall is Aira Beck, which rises on the upper slopes of Stybarrow Dodd at a height of and flows north-easterly before turning south, blocked by the high heather-covered slopes of Gowbarrow Fell. It turns south on its eight-kilometre journey to join

Ullswater Ullswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, being about long and wide, with a maximum depth a little over . It was scooped out by a glacier in the Last Ice Age. Geography It is a typical Lake District "ribbon lake", ...

, at a height of . One kilometre before entering the lake, the beck makes the leap down a rocky and steep sided ravine at the falls known as Aira Force. The water falls approximately to a rocky pool, from where the beck continues through a shallow valley to the lake. The river name Aira is derived from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''eyrr'', a gravel bank, and Old Norse ''á'', a river, hence "the river at the gravel bank", a reference to Aira Point, a gravelly spit where the river enters Ullswater. The Old Norse word ''fors'', waterfall, has been adopted into several northern English dialects and is widely used for waterfalls, with the English spelling 'Force'. Thus, "the waterfall on gravel-bank river".

Tourism

Aira Force lies on land owned by the

. The Trust purchased the 750-acre Gowbarrow Park (on which the force lies) in 1906 and has provided facilities, such as car parking, disabled access, graded paths, and viewing platforms to make Aira Force one of the most famous and most visited waterfalls in the Lake District. Details National Trust purchase. The National Trust has also provided public lavatories and a café, and the site is open to visitors throughout the year. A public footpath from the village of Dockray passes the waterfall. Beside the walk that passes up the glen is located a good example of a

Wish Tree A wish tree is a tree, usually distinguished by species, location or appearance, which is used as an object of wishes and offerings. Such trees are identified as possessing a special religious or spiritual value. Postulants make votive offering ...

, in this case using a large fallen tree trunk. Visitors hammer coins into it using stones from the site. In 2015,

Ullswater 'Steamers' Ullswater 'Steamers' is a boat company which provides leisure trips on Ullswater in the north-eastern part of the English Lake District. It is based in Glenridding, Cumbria. Founded in 1855, it currently operates five diesel powered vessels bet ...

opened a jetty on the lake shore near Aira Force, making the waterfall accessible by foot passenger ferry from

Glenridding Glenridding is a village at the southern end of Ullswater, in the English Lake District. The village is popular with mountain walkers who can scale England's third-highest mountain, Helvellyn, and many other challenging peaks from there. Ety ...

. A footpath runs from Aira Force as far as Glencoyne Bay, but only a track exists from this point on.

Bridges

A small arched bridge spans the stream just as the beck goes over the falls giving views from the top. There is also a second bridge at the foot of the falls. Both bridges were constructed in honour of two members of the

Spring family The Spring family is a Suffolk gentry family that has been involved in the politics and economy of East Anglia since the 15th century, as well as holding large estates in Ireland from the 16th century.Joseph Jackson Howard, ‘Spring’, ‘’Th ...

early in the 20th century.

Cecil Spring Rice Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, (27 February 1859 – 14 February 1918) was a British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1912 to 1918, as which he was responsible for the organisation of British efforts to end A ...

was the British ambassador to the USA during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, while Stephen Spring Rice was a senior civil servant. The bridges are of particular interest: the lower is made of vertical stones, not traditional in this area of Cumbria, while the higher has horizontal stones, more in keeping with the dale customs. Gives details of bridges. In 2021, the lower bridge was rendered inaccessible after a tree fall during heavy storms.

Poetry

The

Lake Poet The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

paid many visits to the area around Aira Force; he was probably inspired to write his poem "Daffodils", with the opening line "I wandered lonely as a cloud", as he observed

daffodil ''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as '' Sternbergia'', ''Is ...

s growing on the shore of Ullswater near where Aira Beck enters the lake near Glencoyne Bay. Details that Wordsworth was probably inspired to write daffodils at Glencoyne Bay. The falls themselves are mentioned in three Wordsworth poems, the most famous reference being in "The Somnambulist", where in the final verse he writes:

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. The writings of Landon are transitional between Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Her first major breakthrough ...

's poetical illustration in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834, Airey Force, to an engraving of a painting by

Thomas Allom Thomas Allom (13 March 1804 – 21 October 1872) was an English architect, artist, and topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He designed many buildings in London, in ...

, refers to a legend that a hermit once lived beneath the falls.

References

External links

{{commons category, Aira Force
Ullswater and Aira Force information at the National Trust

Lake District Walks - Aira Force Waterfall

Video on the Legend of Lady Emma and Sir Eglamore

Video of the Aira Force Wish Tree

Video footage of the Aira Force Pier

Video of the Glenridding to Glencoyne Bay walk
Tourist attractions in Cumbria National Trust properties in the Lake District Waterfalls of Cumbria