Volcanic rocks in the Lake District

To the casual visitor, fell walker or rock climber it is this scenery associated with the Borrowdale Volcanic rocks which typifies the hotels in the lake district . Starting from the southwest fringe where volcanic rocks encircle Black Coombe , the outcrop extends as a broad strip in a northeasterly direction to include most of the fells, high plateaux and high mountain peaks of the central Lake District. In the Coniston Fells many of the mountain tops are above 2,500 ft and include Coniston Old Man, Dow Crag , Swirl Howe  and the broad saddleback ridge of Wetherlam.

Here the varied assemblage of volcanic beds is responsible for a landscape of contrasts. The undissected plateau tops such as that of Brim Fell leading up to Coniston Old Man tends to be gently rounded with a few bare rock outcrops projecting through a superficial cover of broken rock fragments which the short tufty grasses have only partially colonized.

The Old Man itself represents a rocky tor dominating the end of the ridge.
From its top the view eastwards lies across Coniston Water to the beveled plateau surface of the Furness Fells, composed of Silurian flags, shale's and grits. To the west and within a stone's throw, across the deeply set darkened hollow which encloses Goat's Water, lie the great rock buttresses of Dow Crag.

Although slightly lower than the Coniston Old Man, the sheer face of the crag rising out of its own screes is one of the finest in the whole Lake District. The rock wall is broken in places by great gullies or rakes which have been etched out along narrow zones of shattered rock. The volcanic rocks, with their regular joint planes, are particularly prone to shattering in this way, and where weathering and stream erosion have exploited the weakness the massive rock is broken up into great slices. The main gash on Dow Crag is only a few feet wide, but looking down from the top it forms an almost vertical 'chimney' descending to the dark placid surface of Goat's Water.

Some of these gashes are formed where dykes of intruded rock weather more easily than the surrounding volcanic beds. The wide cleft of Mickledore which separates the twin peaks Scafell and Scafell Pike is associated with a dyke of less resistant rock passing through it. On Dow Crag the effect of the development of clefts has been to give it the appearance of a number of tarlike rock masses rising abruptly out of the general level surface of the narrow ridge crest. Around lie a mass of broken angular boulders reminiscent of the clitter* slopes which encompass the Dartmoor granite tors.

Impressive though the precipice of Dow Crag is, it is in the Scafell area that the Borrowdale Volcanic Series gives rise to the most rugged and wildest scenery . Had the eighteenth century etchers been able to penetrate this innermost recess they surely would have chosen the sheer rock buttress of Great End  or Lord's Rake rather than the Jaws of Borrow¬dale or the Bowder Stone , their more usual subjects. Not only is this the highest part of the Lake District but it is also the great knot at the center of a series of radiating valleys. Seen from many of the surrounding low peaks both Scafell and Scafell Pikes stand out unmistakably.

This is country far away from the roads where the fell walker can thread his way through the upper valley sections, up the rock strewn slopes to his goal of the twin summits separated by the col of Mickledore. The volcanic rocks of the Scafell region form part of a great syncline or downwarp in the strata. In character they consist of a variable suite, ranging from the coarsest brecciate of broken rock fragments down to the finest volcanic dust. Many of the rock types present are flinty in character and these resist erosion.

This is particularly true of the thick ash bands which have been altered and hardened by heat. Some of the ash bands have escaped this alteration and it is in these beds that the workable slates are found. In the past they have been extensively quarried in a broad band which runs from Walna Scar , through the slope below Coniston Old Man  past Tilberthwaite, and the Elterwater area , and then across to the valleys of south¬east Lake District like Kentmere and Long Sleddale. Only a few of these areas still produce workable slates at the present time.

Older rocks in the Lake District

The varied sequence of older rocks which makes up the heart of the Lake District gives way to a series of younger and for the most part softer rocks on their margins.luxury themed boutique hotels in the lake district The Carboniferous and New Red Sandstone rocks form an incomplete encircling rim breached only by the penetrating estuaries of Morecambe Bay in the south. Where harder beds occur, like the compact and massive Carboniferous Limestone, they give rise to a series ofinfacing escarpments. Faulting has isolated the limestone into tabular blocks and in the country southwest of Kendal they rise abruptly from the marshes and estuarine meadows of the Gilpin and Winster. Scarps like Whitbarrow and Underbarrow are impressive landscape elements, with the harder beds standing out as scars and the whole of the lower slope covered with rubble screes.

On top, bare limestone pavements with deep grooves or grykes occur in a few places like Farrer's Allot¬ment on Whit barrow, but they are not nearly so extensive here as on Hutton Roof to the southeast.

To the west of Kendal the road which leads across the tops of Underbarrow passes through a partially enclosed hollow just below Bradleyfield House which resembles, on a small scale, the basin feature known as a polje,  of common occurrence in many limestone areas on the continent. Mter heavy rain water often collects in the bottom and, for a time, a lake is formed which floods across the road. Beyond Shap there is another extensive area of limestone largely taken up by Lowther Park. This park, the creation of the Earls of Lonsdale, has given the area an artificial appearance, but no amount of landscaping by the eighteenth¬century practitioners could alter the bold white scars which dominate the south¬western face near Knipe Moor. Across the Eamont valley the limestone scenery is very subdued, largely because the solid rock is masked by thick deposits of glacial drift.

Quarries like those near Newbiggin mark the con¬tinuation of the limestone outcrop in a northwesterly direction into Inglewood Forest. Rocky knolls of limestone occasionally poke through the drift in Grey¬stoke Park and the house is itself built oflimestone obtained from quarries on the estate. It makes quite a good freestone for building, but its principal use is for dry stone walling. At Hutton Roof there is an impressive edge to the limestone with a drop of over 200 ft to the flat floor of the Mungrisdale trench. The river Caldew winds its way across the marshy valley, but beyond Hatcliffe Bridge the river cuts through the limestone in a small, though impressive, gorge. Meter a period of prolonged dry weather, when the river flow is low, much of the water disappears down swallow holes leaving only large pools in the river bed.

The most spectacular limestone gorge in the area is undoubtedly that which occurs just west of Caldbeck. Here, in the area known as The Howk, a relatively small tributary of the Caldew forms what the nineteenth century guide books describe as 'a picturesque cascade in a narrow glen fringed with firs'. When Whellan wrote his topographical history of Cumberland in 1860 he described a natural arch cut in the limestone. This has now collapsed but the gorge still retains some gigantic circular swallow holes one of which, the 'Fairies Kettle', has the appearance of boiling water when the river is in spate. The whole gorge of the Howk is a most impressive piece of limestone architecture, but, judging by the overgrown mossy paths, few who come to Caldbeck in search of John Peel venture up the valley.