Elterwater is a village in the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

and the county of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

. The village lies half a mile (800 m) north-west of the lake of Elter Water, from which it derives its name. Both are situated in the valley of

Great Langdale Great Langdale is a valley in the Lake District National Park in North West England, the epithet "Great" distinguishing it from the neighbouring valley of Little Langdale. Langdale is also the name of a valley in the Howgill Fells, elsewhere ...

. Elterwater Bridge is a Grade II listed structure dating to at least the 18th century.

Economic activity

In the past, the principal industries have been farming, quarrying for slate and gunpowder manufacture. The first two activities continue, while evidence of the latter survives in the grounds of the Langdale Estate, a holiday development founded in the 1930s and redeveloped as a timeshare in the 1980s. In the present day, tourism is a principal source of income and the village is popular with visitors of all kinds, particularly fell-walkers due to its proximity to many of the Lake Districts most popular fells. The village is home to a plethora of holiday homes, as well as the Britannia Inn and Elterwater Hostel, a former YHA hostel, that was saved from closure and taken independent in 2013.

Art

In the 1880s, the Guild of St George founded by

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

revived small-scale linen spinning and weaving in Langdale, at a cottage in Elterwater, led by Albert Fleming and Marion Twelves and continued by Elizabeth Pepper. The decorative textiles became known as Ruskin Lace. In 1947, German artist

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist. He was born in Hanover, Germany, but lived in exile from 1937. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism (a ...

created one of his in a barn at Cylinders. This three-dimensional artwork, and the entire wall on which it was installed, was moved to the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle in 1965. Artist Bernard Eyre-Walker lived and painted in Elterwater in the 1930s and 40s. Watercolour painter Thomas Frederick Worrall's painting ''Elterwater Tarn and Langdale Pikes'' is in the Bishop of Carlisle's house in Keswick. Only a quarter of the houses in Elterwater are permanently occupied, the rest being holiday cottages.

Etymology

" 'The lake frequented by swans', from ON 'elptr'/'alpt' 'swan', in the gen. tive sing. larform with '-ar', and 'water', probably replacing ON 'vatn' 'lake'.

Whooper swan The whooper swan ( /ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/ "hooper swan"; ''Cygnus cygnus''), also known as the common swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genu ...

s still winter on the lake". (ON is Old Norse).

Gallery

File:Elterwater_road_sign.jpeg, A road sign in Elterwater File:Britannia Inn 2019.jpg, The Britannia Inn, 2019

References

Bibliography

External links

Villages in Cumbria Westmorland Westmorland and Furness {{cumbria-geo-stub