Walna Scar is a hill 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 ...
, lying just south of a
pass of the same name in the
Coniston Hills. Its summit at is only slightly higher than the pass.
Walna Scar is the highest of
Wainwright's ''
The Outlying Fells of Lakeland
''The Outlying Fells of Lakeland'' is a 1974 book written by Alfred Wainwright dealing with hills in and around the Lake District of England. It differs from Wainwright's '' Pictorial Guides'' in that each of its 56 chapters describes a walk, ...
''. He describes an ascent from Coniston, continuing past the main summit to a second summit at White Maiden before returning to the south.
Walna Scar can be climbed from Coniston or from the
Duddon Valley
The Duddon Valley is a valley in the southern Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Duddon flows through the valley, rising in the mountains between Eskdale and Langdale, before flowing into the Irish Sea near Broughton in ...
. Both routes meet at the top pass of the Walna Scar Road, a
restricted byway
A byway in the United Kingdom is a track, often rural, which is too minor to be called a road. These routes are often unsurfaced, typically having the appearance of ' green lanes'. Despite this, it is legal (but may not be physically possible) to ...
, and then head south to the summit. Walna Scar road was an old packhorse route, termed by
Wainwright “the ancient highway over Walna Scar”, and formed an important medieval conduit from
Furness Abbey
Furness Abbey, or St. Mary of Furness, is a former Catholic monastery located to the north of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The abbey dates back to 1123 and was once the second-wealthiest and most powerful Cistercian monastery in the coun ...
to Coniston for the wooltrade, (as well perhaps as having been used in the Bronze Age).
Geologically, Walna Scar contains a rich seam of distinctively striped slate which was quarried until the early 20th century. This was widely used for flooring in the North of England. The quarry can still be seen today on the slopes overlooking the Duddon Valley.
Literary references
*Walna Scar features in the 19th C novel The Old Church Clock, by
Richard Parkinson Richard Parkinson may refer to:
* Richard Parkinson (agriculturist) (1748–1815), English, consultant for George Washington
*Richard Parkinson (explorer) (1844–1909), Danish, also anthropologist
* Richard Parkinson (neurosurgeon), Australian
* R ...
.
*
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...
in his 1939 poem ‘The Thunderstorm’ wrote of how “...when I came to Walna Pass/ Hailstones hissing and hopping among the grass”.
[N Nicholson ed., ''The Lake District'' (Penguin 1978) p 53]
See also
*
Brown Pike
References
Fells of the Lake District
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