Kirkstone Pass

Kirkstone Pass
Looking north down Kirkstone Pass
Elevation1,489 ft (454 m)
Traversed byA592 road
Coordinates54°28′38″N 2°55′22″W / 54.47733°N 2.92283°W / 54.47733; -2.92283
Kirkstone Pass is located in the Lake District
Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass is located in the former Eden District
Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass
Location in Eden, Cumbria

Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of 1,489 feet (454 m).

It is the District's highest pass traversed by road, the A592 road between Ambleside in Rothay Valley and Patterdale in Ullswater Valley. The road gradient approaches 1 in 4. The picturesque view down into Patterdale has Brothers Water as its focal point.

The Kirkstone Pass Inn stands close to the summit. Once a vital coaching inn, it now caters primarily for tourists. It is the third-highest public house in England.[a]

Slate quarrying

Lead and copper ore mining and slate mining has spanned centuries.

Petts Quarry worked by Kirkstone Green Slate Company is just to the Ambleside side of the summit.[3] Nearby is Hartsop Hall lead mine.

Caudale slate mine is a few miles further down, on the Ullswater side, and was last worked at the beginning of the 20th century; all its adits are now blocked.

Name

The name of the pass comes from a prominent stone, the Kirkstone, which stands a few yards from the A592 on the Patterdale side of the inn.[4] Its shadow resembles a steeple;[5] 'kirk' means church in old Norse and was a variant in related Old English.

In local names the climb from Ambleside is known as The Struggle.

Cultural references

In Cue For Treason, best-known novel of children's writer Geoffrey Trease, much of it set in Cumbria, the narrator's friend long uses the name "Kit Kirkstone", taken from the pass.[6]

"Witch of the Westmorland" by musician Archie Fisher includes the lyric "weary by Ullswater, and the misty brake fern way, down through the cleft of the Kirkstone Pass, the winding water lay".

  • Kirkstone Pass descending to Brothers Water
    Kirkstone Pass descending to Brothers Water
  • The Kirkstone Pass Inn
    The Kirkstone Pass Inn
  • The church-like Kirk Stone at right, and nearby a nearly cuboid stone
    The church-like Kirk Stone at right, and nearby a nearly cuboid stone
  • The bottom of The Struggle in Ambleside
    The bottom of The Struggle in Ambleside

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The highest is the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire;[1][2] the next is the Cat and Fiddle Inn in the Peak District.[2]

References

  1. ^ McVeigh, Tracy (5 February 2012). "At the lonely Tan Hill Inn, the snow is falling… and business is booming". The Observer. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Historic Cat and Fiddle pub on Derbyshire border to reopen after crowdfunding success". Business Live. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  3. ^ Cameron, Alastair (15 March 2016). Slate Mining in the Lake District: An Illustrated History. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-5131-6.
  4. ^ Ferguson, Robert (1873). The Dialect of Cumberland; with a Chapter on Its Place-Names. Williams and Norgate.
  5. ^ Quincey, Thomas De (1873). Recollections of the lakes and the lake poets. Shepard and Gill.
  6. ^ Trease, Geoffrey (1940). "2: Escape". Cue for Treason (Hardcover). England: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631003502. Kit Kirkstone, he said without hesitating...he was lying......he's making that up; it's the name of a pass between the mountains, over to Patterdale.