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The English Lake District - England's mountainous landscape
The English Lake District
The English Lake District lies almost exclusivley in the English county of Cumbria (Formerly Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness).
The Lake District houses England’s highest peaks, its biggest and deepest lakes and many of its forests and woodlands. The area has been an inspiration to many painter, poets and writers, including William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter amongst others. The area is protected by a national park, whilst this is good in ways it also encourages visitors to the area, so consequently some areas are quite popular in summer.
High Street Fell
History:
The English Lake District was the last territory of the shadowy Kingdom of Rheged - a ancient British Celtic Kingdom which once held sway of basically all of North West England - from Cumbria (and at times parts of Dumfries and Galloway), right down to Cheshire and the borders with Staffordshire.
Rheged split into two seperate kingdoms - North and South Rheged, the North being based in Cumbria, with the South falling to the Anglo-Saxons first.
As for North Rheged it held out much longer, until about 670 AD when Rheged was subsumed into Anglo-Saxon Northumbria through mariage.
Even before this the Anglo-Saxons had been crossing the Pennines from Bernicia (precurssor to Northumbria) and traversing through hills around Alston to settle in Cumbria.
The Anglo-Saxons mainly settled along the coast, in the Valley of Eden and in the low-lying areas between the Lake District’s mountains - the Cumbrian Mountains.
Fleetwith Pike
During the Viking raids and invasions on England Norwegian Vikings settled heavily, preffering the higher ground for their types of farming. The Norwegian Vikings settled in such numbers that unlike Anglo-Saxon and Celtic placenames which are mainly found in a select few areas of Cumbria, Norwegian placenames cover the whole county and beyond, far outnumbering both Anglo-Saxon and Celtic placenames.
The Vikings also left a large genetic legacy, especially around towns such as Penrith (ironically a very Celtic placename).
Previously Cumbria and the Lake District had come under Northumbrian rule, but with the settlement of the Vikings throughout Northern England the area passed mainly to the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik (York).
Once Viking England had been incorporated into the newly-founded England - the merger of the old Anglo-Saxon and Viking Kingdoms, Cumbria and the Lake District fell under English rule.
Borrowdale
England itself was besieged with problems, the Norwegians and Danes wanted blood at Stanford Bridge, then a further invasion of England from Normandy occured and the exhausted English Army made its way south, latter to be defeated.
The Normans quickly established their control over England, but “ran out of steam” so to speak when reaching Northern England, and the Scots subsequently saw fit to “nick” much of the territory of the Lake District and Cumbria. Scotland would hold and occupy these English territories for a few decades until Norman England finally went to get them back.
A major part in Lake District and Cumbrian history have been the “Border reivers”, outlaws exploiting the border lands and lawlessness of the Anglo-Scottish border to raid both sides of the border. Apart from that, from this point Cumbria’s history mostly follows that of the rest of England and latter the UK.
Geography and nature:
The Lake District in my opinion should more realistically be termed “The Cumbrian Mountains”, since its the Cumbrian Mountains which are the main attraction for most people. These mountains whilst low by European standards (which the bloody libtards won’t let us forget) are the highest in England and camparable in height to the Snowdonian mountains of Wales (OK, Snowdon is higher than Scafell, but close enough).
The lakes were formed by the melting of glaciers which carved out much of the landscape and left big scree (loose rock) slopes on the sides of some of the mountains. The areas forests are quite managed, but are also decent sizes and are a mix of decidous and coniferous trees.
The Lake District also acts as a safe haven for some of England’s rarer wildlife. Its one of the few areas of England where Red Squirrels are common, having been out-competed in most of the rest of England by the introduced Eastern American Grey Squirrel.
South of the Lake District there are otters to be found in Furness, some of England’s only herds of Red Deer in the Cumbrian Mountains and England’s only population of Arctic Char - a fish native of course to the Arctic, but trapped in a lake after the end of the last ice age and luckily the lake is well suited to there needs (maybe one day they’ll ivolve due to the isolation into a new species).
Culture:
The culture of the Lake District and Cumbria is basically English, Northern English with Scottish influences mainly (typical of borderlands). The Lakde District was long isolated from both the rest of England and Scotland, so has been able to devlop many local traditions, customs and myths and legends.
The name “Cumbria” is derived from the Cumbric language and roughly means “compatriot”, related to the word Cymru / Cambria - Wales. This language (or dialect of Old Welsh - its status is disputed) was spoken in Cumbria and parts of North West England right until the 10th century. The language died out as Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans settled the Lake District and Cumbria, assimilating the remaining Celts - a process which took place all over the rest of England (accept of course Cornwall).
However the Cumbric numeral system survived with shepards counting their herds and in childrens rhyms - it varies but it usually goes something like this:
yan - one
tyan - two
tethere - three
methera - four
pimp - five
and so on (excuse on mistakes, it goes something like that but I’m doing it from memory).
The Cumbric counting system is very similar to the Welsh counting system and survived up until the 19th century all over Northern England, from the Peak District, York Moors to the Cumbrian Mountains (suggesting that it might in fact belong instead to the older-still British Celtic language - the language Welsh and Cumbric evolved from).
A nice walk...
Apart from the counting system the Cumbrian dialect is mainly built upon Northern English, but with a huge vocabulary of Norse words left by the Vikings. The Cumbrian accent sounds quite similar to that of Durham or Northumberland, but also has many differences.
Summary:
The Lake District, Cumbria and the Cumbrian Mountains are England’s contrasting landscape. England has many different landscapes, from the flat fens, to the moors, white cliffs, rolling hills and plains, but The Lake District and the Cumbrian Mountains are England’s mountains.
Whilst there’s the Pennines too, they don’t compare in rugged landscapes and awesome scenry of the Cumbrian Mountains and so this landscape is pretty unique in England, and probably the closest-looking landscape we get to Snowdonia, the Highlands or the Scandinavian Mountains (all coincidentally of the same type). Although quite small in height compared to these they’re still a nice place to visit, just stay away from Appleby!
Pictures of the Lake District
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Originally Posted by Allenson
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