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 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 ...

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 ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. 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 mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

and

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

works. St John’s Beck

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

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

Thirlmere Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district in Cumbria and the English Lake District National Park, Lake District. The Helvellyn ridge lies to the east of Thirlmere. To the west of Thirlmere are a numbe ...

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

s. It runs from south to north, set between the rocky flanks of Clough Head 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. At its northern end the vale widens to meet the broad east-to-west valley of the River Greta near Threlkeld. The view north from the vale is dominated by the mountains Blencathra and

Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is traditionally considered to be the List of Wainwrights, fourth-highest peak but depending on what topographic prominence is thought to be significant is also ...

. 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