Carrock Fell is a

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of Man, pa ...

in the English Lake District, situated in the northern region of the national park, 8 miles (13 kilometres) north-east of Keswick.

Etymology

The name ''Carrock'' is a

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

formation. Sometimes stated as deriving from ''carreg'' meaning "rock, stony place", early attestations of the name suggest that is more likely to represent ''*carr'', "rock, hard-surface", with the adjectival and nominal suffix ''-ǭg'', sometimes meaning "abounding in".

Height

The fell's elevation seems to have decreased by two metres in recent years. The

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

now give it a height of 661 m (2,168 ft) in the most recent map updates after having recorded it at for many years. Many guidebooks and mountain tables still record 663 metres as the “official” height.

Topography

Well known Lake District scribe

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume '' Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'', publis ...

rated Carrock Fell as the second most exciting and interesting fell in the northern area of Lakeland (after

Blencathra Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly hills in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top at 2,848 feet (868 metres). Name For many years, Ordnance Sur ...

and before Skiddaw), it has special appeal regarding geology, mining and history and its rocky nature makes it stand out from the neighbouring fells which are mainly grassy and smooth. Carrock Fell is bounded to the south and east by the

River Caldew The River Caldew is a river running through Cumbria in England. The river rises high up on the northern flanks of Skiddaw, in the Northern Fells area of the English Lake District, and flows in a northerly direction until it joins the River ...

into which all drainage from the fell goes to find its way eventually to the

Solway Firth The Solway Firth ( gd, Tràchd Romhra) is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven ...

Geology

Carrock Fell’s geology is unique in the Lake District in that it is predominantly composed of

gabbro Gabbro () is a phaneritic (coarse-grained), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling of magnesium-rich and iron-rich magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ch ...

, a rough igneous rock that also makes up the famous Black

Cuillin The Cuillin ( gd, An Cuiltheann) is a range of mostly jagged rocky mountains on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The main Cuillin ridge is also called the Black Cuillin to distinguish it from the Red Cuillin ('), which lie to the east of Glen Slig ...

on the Isle of Skye. Gabbro is an excellent “clean” rock for climbers and Carrock Fell offers the only rock climbing of quality in the northern fells, the majority of which are made up of the unsuitable crumbly

Skiddaw Slate Skiddaw slate is an early Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rock, as first identified on the slopes of Skiddaw in the English Lake District. The base of this series is unknown. The thickness could, therefore, amount to several thousand feet of ...

. The fell is rich in mineral ores and has been mined extensively for many centuries with

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...

and

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

all being extracted from the fell. The most famous mine on the fell was the Carrock Mine, the only source of tungsten in Britain outside of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

and

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. The mine was situated in Grainsgill Beck on the south western flanks of the fell with the main

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient level. Adit ...

at a height of 340 metres. The mine was opened in 1854 but has only been worked in periods when the price of tungsten has been high, for example during wartime, the mine was worked extensively during both

World Wars A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...

and the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

when supplies of Tungsten were threatened. The mine closed in 1981 and in 1988 the site was bulldozed and landscaped to its original outline.

History

Carrock Fell is also the site of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

which crowns the summit. Only the foundations of the walls remain. The fort is oval shaped and is believed to have been built by the Celts and destroyed by the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

in their conquest of northern England. Carrock Fell's other claim to historical fame is that it was climbed by well-known British novelists

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

and

Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for '' The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for '' The Moonstone'' (1868), which has b ...

in 1857 during a tour of northern Cumberland. Dickens had read about the fell and had made up his mind to climb it. Collins sprained his ankle and Dickens had to help him back down the mountain, according to The New Yorker 7/25/11 in an article by Jonathan Rosen. (Collins wrote the first English-language detective novel, ''The Moonstone''.) Later, Collins and Dickens collaborated on a humorous narrative based in part upon their climb up Carrock Fell, entitled ''The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices''.

Ascents

Despite all its other attractions, Carrock Fell is primarily the haunt of the fell walker; it is mostly climbed from the surfaced road which goes to the site of the Carrock Mine. It is possible to leave a car at and then climb the fell by the steep south-west slopes. Carrock Fell can also be climbed from the road between Mungrisedale and Hesket Newmarket, threading a way through the craggy and bouldery eastern slopes known as "Apronful of Stones".

Summit

The top of the fell offers a good view to the east towards the Pennines across the Eden valley. Carrock Fell has two subsidiary summits, Round Knott () and Milton Hill () which lie to the west of the main summit on the ridge which continues to the adjoining fell of

High Pike High Pike is a fell in the northern part of the English Lake District, it is located 4.5 kilometres south of Caldbeck. It has a height of 658 metres (2159 feet) and is the most northerly of the Lakeland fells over 2000 feet. It is a ...

.
Computer-generated summit panorama

References

* A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, The Northern Fells, Alfred Wainwright * Complete Lakeland Fells, Bill Birkett, * The Mountains of England and Wales, John and Anne Nuttall

External links

Aerial photo of Carrock Fell hill fort
{{Iron Age hillforts in England Hewitts of England Nuttalls Fells of the Lake District Hill forts in Cumbria Mungrisdale