Burnmoor Tarn, on Eskdale Fell in

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 ...

, England, is one of the largest entirely natural

tarns A tarn (or corrie loch) is a proglacial mountain lake, pond or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn. Etymology The word is derived from the Old Norse word ''tjörn'' ("a small mounta ...

in the

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 ...

. Its waters flow into Whillan Beck at the tarn's north-eastern corner, which immediately turns south and flows into Eskdale, joining the Esk at Beckfoot. Burnmoor Lodge, a former fishing lodge, stands by the southern shore and a mediaeval

corpse road Corpse roads provided a practical means for transporting corpses, often from remote communities, to cemetery, cemeteries that had burial rights, such as parish churches and chapel of ease, chapels of ease. In Britain, such routes can also be known ...

runs past the eastern shore where it fords the beck. Eskdale Moor or

Boat How Boat How or Eskdale Moor is a hill in the English Lake District, near Boot, in the Borough of Copeland, Cumbria. It lies south of Burnmoor Tarn, between the River Mite to the west and the Whillan Beck tributary of Eskdale to the east. It i ...

lies to the south of the tarn. The tarn is one of the sites in

DEFRA DEFRA may refer to: * Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, United States law * Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom government department {{Disambiguation ...

's UK Upland Waters Monitoring Network. It occupies and lies at an altitude of in a

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

hollow on the uplands between

Wastwater Wast Water or Wastwater () is a lake located in Wasdale, a valley in the western part of the Lake District National Park, England. The lake is almost long and more than wide. It is a glacial lake, formed in a glacially 'over-deepened' valley ...

and Eskdale. The lake has two distinct basins close to the south-eastern shore and a maximum depth of . There are four main inflow streams to the north and north-west. The outflow at the eastern end joins the Hardrigg Beck which drains the slopes of

Scafell Scafell ( or ; also spelled Sca Fell, previously Scawfell) is a mountain in the English Lake District, part of the Southern Fells. Its height of makes it the second-highest mountain in England after its neighbour Scafell Pike, from which i ...

and, in times of especially high flow, is partly diverted into the lake across a braided

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...

References

{{authority control Lakes of the Lake District Borough of Copeland