What to See in Elterwater - Top Sights and Attractions

Lake in England. Loughrigg Tarn is a small, natural lake in the Lake District, Cumbria, England. It is situated north of Windermere, just north of the village of Skelwith Bridge, and at the foot of Loughrigg Fell. "Loughrigg Tarn" is a bit of a tautology, since "loughrigg" means "ridge of the lough " and "tarn" is also the name of a body of water.

Loughrigg Tarn was a favoured place of William Wordsworth, who, in his Epistle to Sir George Howland Beaumont Bart, likened it to “Diana’s Looking-glass.. round, clear and bright as heaven," in reference to Lake Nemi, the mirror of Diana in Rome.

Alfred Wainwright notes that Loughrigg Tarn is "one of the most secluded of tarns", rarely being visible from the fells. He also identifies that Loughrigg Fell is the only Lake District fell to share its name with a tarn, although he might have overlooked Scoat Fell (Scoat Tarn) and Bowscale Fell (Bowscale Tarn).^[1]

The Ting Mound or Thing Moot at Fellfoot Farm, Little Langdale, Cumbria, England is an Ancient Monument. It is a natural mound which has been deliberately terraced, possibly in the tenth century, although it has not been dated archaeologically.

It is believed that the mound was used as an open-air meeting place for local government, specifically for a Thing (from the Old Norse þing), a type of early assembly found throughout Northern Europe where there was Scandinavian influence. The mound is very similar to the Tynwald Mount on the Isle of Man. This supports the idea that it was established by Viking settlers, who have left a legacy of Norse toponyms in the Langdales, and possibly built some of the dry-stone walls which are a feature of the landscape. It is situated close to a Roman road and other transport routes through the Cumbrian mountains.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the site attracted the interest of local antiquarians. It was described by Henry Swainson Cowper (see note) and painted by W.G. Collingwood.^[7]

The Langdale axe industry is the name given by archaeologists to specialised stone tool manufacturing centred at Great Langdale in England's Lake District during the Neolithic period. The existence of a production site was originally suggested by chance discoveries in the 1930s, which were followed by more systematic searching in the 1940s and 1950s by Clare Fell and others. The finds were mainly reject axes, rough-outs and blades created by knapping large lumps of the rock found in the scree or perhaps by simple quarrying or opencast mining. Hammerstones have also been found in the scree and other lithic debitage from the industry such as blades and flakes.

The area has outcrops of fine-grained greenstone or hornstone suitable for making polished stone axes. Such axes have been found distributed across Great Britain. The rock is an epidotised greenstone quarried or perhaps just collected from the scree slopes in the Langdale Valley on Harrison Stickle and Pike of Stickle. The nature and extent of the axe-flaking sites making up the Langdale Axe Factory complex are still under investigation. Geological mapping has established that the volcanic tuff used for the axes outcrops along a narrow range of the highest peaks in the locality. Other outcrops in the area are known to have been worked, especially on Harrison Stickle, and Scafell Pike where rough-outs and flakes have been found on platforms below the peaks at and above the 2000- or 3000-foot level.^[9]