Patterdale (Saint Patrick's Dale) is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the eastern part of 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

Eden District Eden is a local government district in Cumbria, England, based at Penrith Town Hall in Penrith. It is named after the River Eden, which flows north through the district toward Carlisle. Its population of 49,777 at the 2001 census, increased ...

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 ...

, in the traditional county of

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland'';R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref> is a historic county in North West England spanning the southern Lake District and the northern Dales. It had an ...

, and the long valley in which they are found, also called the

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", ...

Valley. The parish had a population of 460 in 2001, increasing to 501 at the 2011 Census. The poet

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 ' ...

lived in youth near Patterdale and his autobiographical poem

The Prelude ''The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem '' is an autobiographical poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Intended as the introduction to the more philosophical poem ''The Recluse,'' which Wordswort ...

narrates in Book 1 such childhood activities as fishing in the lake from a stolen boat. The village is now the start point for a number of popular hill-walks, most notably the

Striding Edge Helvellyn (; possible meaning: ''pale yellow moorland'') is a mountain in the English Lake District, the highest point of the Helvellyn range, a north–south line of mountains to the north of Ambleside, between the lakes of Thirlmere and Ulls ...

path up to

Helvellyn Helvellyn (; possible meaning: ''pale yellow moorland'') is a mountain in the English Lake District, the highest point of the Helvellyn range, a north–south line of mountains to the north of Ambleside, between the lakes of Thirlmere and Ulls ...

. Other

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 Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle o ...

s that can be reached from the valley include

Place Fell Place Fell is a hill in the English Lake District. It stands at the corner of the upper and middle reaches of Ullswater, with steep western flanks overlooking the villages of Glenridding and Patterdale. Topography A ten-mile-long horseshoe of h ...

High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

, Glenridding Dodd, most of the peaks in the

Helvellyn range The Helvellyn range is the name given to a part of the Eastern Fells in the English Lake District, "fell" being the local word for "hill". The name comes from Helvellyn, the highest summit of the group. The Helvellyn range forms a ridge exten ...

, Fairfield and St Sunday Crag, and

Red Screes Red Screes is a fell in the English Lake District, situated between the villages of Patterdale and Ambleside. It may be considered an outlier of the Fairfield group in the Eastern Fells, but is separated from its neighbours by low cols. This g ...

and Stony Cove Pike at the very end of the valley, standing either side of the

Kirkstone Pass Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of . It is the District's highest pass traversed by road, the A592 road between Ambleside in Rothay Valley and Patterdale in Ulls ...

which is the road to

Ambleside Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, Cumbria, Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern ...

. Further up the valley to the north is the lake of

with Gowbarrow Fell and

Hallin Fell Hallin Fell is a hill in the English Lake District surrounded on three sides by Ullswater. Topography The fell is a continuation of the ridge leading down from Steel Knotts, but the depression at The Hause is so profound that Hallin Fell appear ...

overlooking it. The only tarn in the valley is Brothers Water, one of the first places in the Lakes to be acquired 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 ...

. The only other village in the valley is

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 ...

. Patterdale village has a

youth hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared ba ...

, a church, a primary school and a hotel. In summer it can get quite busy, but not so much as Glenridding. Patterdale is considered to be a walkers' valley, and in fact

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'', published ...

stated that it was his favourite valley in the Lake District as it is relatively undisturbed by tourism. Alongside

, Patterdale was also badly affected by

Storm Desmond Storm Desmond was an extratropical cyclone and fourth named storm of the 2015–16 UK and Ireland windstorm season, notable for directing a plume of moist air, known as an atmospheric river, which brought record amounts of orographic rainfall to ...

in December 2015.

Local government

The

of Patterdale also includes the villages of

and

Hartsop Hartsop is a small village in the English Lake District. It lies in the Patterdale valley, near Brothers Water, Hayeswater and Kirkstone Pass. It consists of 17th-century grey stone cottages, like so many of its neighbours. Hartsop retains ...

. As well as the southern end of

, it also includes the smaller lake of Brothers Water. From 1894 to 1934, the parish was part of the

West Ward Rural District West Ward was a rural district of the administrative county of Westmorland. The area was directly based on the former West Ward rural sanitary district, and therefore indirectly on the old West Ward or hundred of Westmorland. The district exi ...

, then was transferred to the newly created Lakes Urban District, finally becoming part of

in 1974, under the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

. The parish was once an outlying part of Barton, which is about from Patterdale.

Geography

The

A592 road The A592 road is a major route running north–south through the English Lake District. The road connects Penrith and junction 40 of the M6 motorway), with Staveley at the southern tip of the lake, Windermere, which is skirted by the A592 ...

Windermere Windermere (sometimes tautology (language), tautologically called Windermere Lake to distinguish it from the nearby town of Windermere, Cumbria (town), Windermere) is the largest natural lake in England. More than 11 miles (18 km) in leng ...

to Penrith, crosses the southern boundary of the parish at the col of the

. The A592 continues north crossing the northern boundary of the parish at Glencoyne Bridge, having covered 7.2 road miles (11.6 km) and 6.7 miles (10.8 km)

as the crow flies __NOTOC__ The expression ''as the crow flies'' is an idiom for the most direct path between two points, rather similar to "in a beeline". This meaning is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel '' Oliv ...

References

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: Patterdale with Hartsop
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)
Video and commentary on St Patrick's Holy WellPatterdale TODAY - village website - what's happening in Hartsop, Deepdale, Patterdale and GlenriddingVillage websitePatterdale C of E Primary School websitePatterdale Village Store and Post OfficePatterdale Dog Day Annual Sheep Dog TrialsPatterdale Hall Adventure Learning CentrePatterdale War Memorial InformationPatterdale Community Flood Group website
{{Cumbria Villages in Cumbria Civil parishes in Cumbria Eden District

Local government

Geography

See also

References

External links