Clough Head - Izeria

Clough Head ( ) (meaning: hill-top above the ravine) is a fell, or hill, in the English Lake District. It marks the northern end of the main ridge of the Helvellyn range and is often walked as part of the ridge walk. The fell stands south of the village of Threlkeld and the A66 road, and it forms the steep eastern side of the tranquil valley of St John's in the Vale. On its western side the fell displays a dark mass of rocky crags and a deep-set rocky ravine. On the other side it has smooth grassy slopes. Beneath the north face is the steep valley or clough from which Clough Head gets its name. Also beneath the steep northern face lies the lower hill of Threlkeld Knotts, a granite hill which has been much quarried round its margin. A number of different types of rock are found on and around Clough Head, which were formed in very different circumstances. These include deep-sea sedimentation, effusive volcanic lava flows, explosive volcanism, an intrusion of granite, mineralisation and finally glacial sculpting. To understand the geology of Clough Head is to understand much of the geology of the Lake District. An old route known as the Old Coach Road passes beneath Clough Head. Most of the fell is Open Access land, which walkers can enter from either end of the Old Coach Road, or from a lane south of the village of Threlkeld. Four main routes lead to the summit.

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St John's in the Vale

St John’s in the Vale is a glacial valley in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria, England. Within the vale are a number of farms and small settlements, in addition to several disused quarry and mining works. St John’s Beck meanders northward along the floor of the vale, and is the main outflow from Thirlmere 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 fells. 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. 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’.

Great Dodd

Great Dodd (meaning: big round hill) is a mountain or fell in the English Lake District. It stands on the main ridge of the Helvellyn range, a line of mountains which runs in a north–south direction between the lakes of Thirlmere and Ullswater in the east of the Lake District. Great Dodd, with a height of 857 metres (2,812 ft) is the highest of the fells in this range to the north of Sticks Pass. Walkers may approach Great Dodd from either High Row near Dockray to the east, or from Legburthwaite to the west – or along the main ridge track from either north or south. Scramblers with climbing skills may be attracted to three gill climbs on the western side of the mountain. The summit of Great Dodd is a smooth, grassy, rounded dome, like its two southern neighbours, Watson's Dodd and Stybarrow Dodd. Together, these three are sometimes called ‘The Three Dodds’. These three are made of volcanic rocks of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, and the tops of all three are covered by the same sheet of rock, which was formed in a series of huge volcanic explosions accompanying the formation of a volcanic caldera about 450 million years ago. Two attempts were made to mine mineral veins in the rocks of Great Dodd, but neither attempt was successful.

Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum

The Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum is a museum located in Threlkeld three miles (4.8 km) east of Keswick, in the Lake District in Cumbria. It includes a quarry with a collection of antique machinery, such as locomotives and cranes, an underground tour of a simulated mine, a geological and mining museum, and mineral panning.

Fornside

Fornside, part of an area known as St John's in the Vale, is a hamlet in the Lake District National Park of Cumbria, England. It is located about 4 miles as the crow flies to the southeast of Keswick, along the B5322 road. The name is believed to be of Scandinavian origin, Forn meaning "old" or "former". The hamlet contains little more than self-catering cottages belonging to Fornside Farm, and 'The Studio', the former house of an artist which was "originally a barn adjoining Fornside House and is about 250 years old". There is also an old green Residential Carriage at Fornside, despite there being no nearby railway. The farmer owners Robert and Pam Hall rear Herdwick sheep. On the western side is the Sosgill and Righause woods. Fornside is mentioned in Hall Caine's novel The Shadow of a Crime and visited by the character of Rotha.