St John’s in the Vale is a

glacial valley U-shaped valleys, also called trough valleys or glacial troughs, are formed by the process of glaciation. They are characteristic of mountain glaciation in particular. They have a characteristic U shape in cross-section, with steep, straight s ...

in the Lake District National Park,

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. C ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Within the vale are a number of farms and small settlements, in addition to several disused

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

and

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

works. St John’s Beck

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ba ...

s northward along the floor of the vale, and is the main outflow from

Thirlmere Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria and the English Lake District. The Helvellyn ridge lies to the east of Thirlmere. To the west of Thirlmere are a number of fells; for instance, Armboth Fell and Raven Crag both ...

reservoir, which is located to the south. Alongside the beck runs the B5322, St John’s in the Vale Road. The vale is in the heart of the northern Lake District and is surrounded by many of the most striking of the Lakeland

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 ...

s. It runs from south to north, set between the rocky flanks of

Clough Head Clough Head () (meaning: ''hill-top above the ravine'') is a fell, or hill, in the English Lake District. It marks the northern end of the main ridge of the Helvellyn range and is often walked as part of the ridge walk. The fell stands south o ...

to the east and the neighbours High Rigg and Low Rigg to the west. The southern end of the vale is a narrow pass between High Rigg and Great Dodd, just to the north of the small settlement of

Legburthwaite Legburthwaite is a village in the Allerdale district, in the county of Cumbria. It is located on the A591 road and the B5322 road. Legburthwaite has a disused place of worship and formerly, a youth hostel. It is just north of Thirlmere ...

. At its northern end the vale widens to meet the broad east-to-west valley of the River Greta near

Threlkeld Threlkeld is a village and civil parish in the north of the Lake District in Cumbria, England, to the east of Keswick. It lies at the southern foot of Blencathra, one of the more prominent fells in the northern Lake District, and to the nort ...

. The view north from the vale is dominated by the mountains

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 Skiddaw. High on the western side of the vale lies St John’s in the Vale Church, located in a low pass between High Rigg on the southern side and Low Rigg to the north. This pass provides access for suitably capable vehicles between the vale and Dale Bottom in the Naddle Valley to the west of High Rigg. The present building dates from 1845, with the earliest reference to a church at the site being 1554. On the opposite side of the vale, cut into the northern flank of Clough Head, lies the Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum. This former commercial quarry, first opened in the late nineteenth century, was established as a museum in 1992. The picturesque writer William Gilpin describes a landslide that happened here on 22 August 1749 as being caused by ‘one of those terrible inundations, which wasted lately the vale of Brackenwait’. Gilpin, William. ''Observations Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, on Several Parts of England; Particularly the Mountains, and Lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland''. 2 vols. London: R. Blamire, 1786. II. 36.

References

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: St. John's, Castlerigg and Wythburn
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)
Carlisle Diocese Youth Centre (Based at St John's-in-the-Vale)
{{DEFAULTSORT:St John's In The Vale Valleys of Cumbria