Coniston to Great Langdale
Walked by Sally and Richard, Monday 10th June 2019
12 miles of walking (7 hours including stops), almost all on route of Cumbria Way
For photographs of our walk click here
I slept rather better than has been the case the last two nights and again woke to a sunny morning, with the promise of a dry and bright day today, though the weather at home in Norfolk is, to all accounts and purposes, pretty dire, and the weather forecast for the rest of the week isn’t great. I’m learning that it is pointless to worry unnecessarily about things that are too far in the future and/or outside my control, and we had an absolutely fantastic walk today, revisiting some of our haunts from our honeymoon 38 years ago.
Breakfast at Orchard Cottage is served from 8.30am and we went along for ours soon after that time - and found the other guests, three German walkers who had also been at the Yewdale Inn last night, already there. This menus gave the option of eggs on toast or somesuch, but we were getting used to the routine of a large breakfast then very little at lunchtime, so we opted for the cooked breakfast again.
Just as we were leaving Orchard Cottage we discovered that the Germans were also heading to the Old Dungeon Ghyll today (well, Sherpa is certainly delivering their luggage there) and, after stopping in Coniston to replenish our supplies of fruit, we first overtook and were then overtaken by the two men who we last saw south of Lowick Bridge; they too were heading for the Old Dungeon Ghyll. By the time we left Coniston behind, we were pretty sure that both the two men and the German group were ahead of us, which pleased us as we don’t particularly like following or being followed by other walkers. Incidentally, we’d very much enjoyed our time in Coniston, a part of the Lake District that we have visited before but don’t know well.
We climbed up to a peculiar stone-built folly with castellated towers and continued to climb, being rewarded by lovely views back to Coniston water. There were also good views to the Coniston Fells, with familiar names from Douglas Adams’ “The Plague Dogs” which I am re-reading. “The Plague Dogs” follows the path of two dogs which have escaped from an animal research centre near Coniston. They eventually end up reaching the coast at Ravenglass, but only after many adventures on the fells which were now to our left.
We were heading to Tarn Hows, but it is further from Coniston than I’d expected. We eventually approached on a path through Tarn Hows Wood and past Tarn Hows Cottage, then onto a minor road and past one of the car parks. Suddenly there were people everywhere - yuck! Tarn Hows, originally part of the Monk Coniston Estate, but then sold by Beatrix Potter to the National Trust, is an artificial lake. I have only visited once before, in winter, and very much enjoyed my walk around the lake on that occasion. It was pretty enough today, but - to my mind - not sufficiently attractive to warrant the excessive number of visitors. We were pleased to take a left-hand fork which led away from the lake and the people.
Our path joined a stony track; not the easiest of walking, but we couldn’t help but think it must be even worse for cyclists, a couple of whom we said “hello” to. We descended to and crossed the A593 (the main road from Coniston to Ambleside) and then followed a path through woodland parallel with the road, but rather nicer than that implies.
The guidebook is quite damnatory about the next bit of the official route from this point, because it follows two sides of a triangle and, at least initially, is on a road. However, we wanted to visit Colwith Force, so stuck with the official route. Yes, we were on a road, climbing steadily up to High Park Farm, but it was an extremely minor road and the views were stunning. We passed the lump of Great How to our left, and the Langdale Pikes were becoming clearer in front of us, with what must be the Fairfield Horseshoe north of Ambleside further to the right. Just as we reached High Park Farm, superb views opened up along the Little Langdale valley to our left.
However, we turned right here, checking our route just as a couple of walkers with a friendly dog did likewise, then passing through the farmyard and in front of High Park Farm, but resisting the refreshments available. We descended behind the walkers then, a short distance into woodland, took a left hand option which descended steeply, eventually bringing us to Colwith Force. There didn’t seem to be a view to the waterfall that was clear of trees, but it was nevertheless most attractive. We scrambled down a short distance and ate our “lunch” (chocolate and fruit) sitting on slightly mossy (i.e. damp!) stones watching the waterfall. After lunch we found the official waterfall-viewing place, complete with rather more people, and took some photographs of Colwith Force from a different angle. There were still trees in front of the waterfall in places, but that’s real life for you! We were very pleased to have come this way rather than the route which the guidebook would have had us follow.
The walk continued close to the stream (one of the becks which flow into Elter Water) though being close to a stream in horizontal distance does not imply anything about vertical distance in this sort of landscape, and there was a fair amount of climbing. Eventually we left the woodland behind and crossed more open countryside towards Skelwith Bridge. As we approached Skelwith Bridge we were getting close to the road to our right and there were occasional glimpses over the river (now the River Brathay) to our left to the path we would be taking towards Elterwater. However we were surprised to reach the river and to be signposted left (i.e. west) along the southern bank. It was most worrying...we were expecting to follow the southern bank of the River Brathay to Skelwith Bridge where we’d use the road to cross the river. We decided that we’d take the risk and follow the southern bank in what we believed to be the wrong direction for a short distance before ignoring the Cumbria Way sign and heading back to Skelwith Bridge...and we were rewarded by a footbridge over the river. This was opened in 2007, whilst we were using a 2005 copyright OS map.
Going back even further in time, to our honeymoon in 1981, Richard’s parents, having driven up from Sussex to Newcastle upon Tyne for our wedding, decided that they would take the opportunity to go on for a holiday, staying at the Skelwith Bridge Hotel. They knew we were going to the Lake District for our honeymoon, but not where we were staying, and they had managed to convince themselves that we were staying miles away...trouble is, they got it wrong...We were actually less than two miles away! After they went home, they realised they’d left their picnic basket behind at the hotel, so a message was relayed to us via the one person who did know how to reach us, and we dutifully went to collect the picnic basket. With all these memories, we’d have been quite interested to look at the Skelwith Bridge Hotel again, but it didn’t seem worth going out of our way and walking along the road just to do this. However we did walk a short distance in the wrong direction along the northern bank of the river in order to visit Skelwith Force. This was definitely worth doing; one advantage of all the rain is seeing waterfalls at their most spectacular!
After retracing our steps past the “new” footbridge, we followed a good path across open meadow and past Elterwater (the stretch of water) to Elter Water (the village), with good views to the Langdale Pikes. There were a large number of families etc out enjoying the afternoon sunshine, which felt hugely at variance with the reputation that the upper part of Great Langdale used to have as the preserve of serious walkers and climbers. A lot of that reputation centred on the Old Dungeon Ghyll (hotel) where we were heading, so we spent some time speculating whether we’d feel like real serious walkers (certainly the feeling we were getting as we walked towards Elterwater) or hopelessly unfit and soft...
We diverted slightly off the path in order to go in search of the tea shop in Elterwater. Unfortunately that was closed for renovation. We took the access road for a quarry and continued onto a footpath, on the opposite side of the river to the road between Elterwater and Chapel Stile and thus opposite the location of the Pillar Hotel, where we stayed 38 years ago. The Pillar Hotel itself closed not much more than a year after we stayed, and the location became a time share resort. Now it is the Langdale Hotel and Spa. However, much to my surprise there were aspects of the site that looked familiar; I even managed to convince myself that a building in the middle was the original hotel whilst a building close to us had once been the annex where we stayed.
We descended to Chapel Stile and passed our friends the Germans, drinking tea in the garden of a hotel. Chapel Stile had two things that we had failed to find in Elterwater: a public toilet and a tea room (the Brambles Tea Room up above the shop). Life was looking up! They’re building new houses in Chapel Stile, but it felt more like a proper village and less like a tourist resort than Elterwater had done. After Chapel Stile we passed through a camp site, still on a broad easy path, but as we progressed further up Great Langdale, the path became narrower and rougher, sometimes venturing off the flat valley floor onto the lower slopes. It felt less spoilt than the path further down the valley and, for the second time in two days, we heard a cuckoo singing.
On the opposite side of the valley, we could see the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, with the waterfall and path up to Stickle Tarn behind. A path from Side House took us across the valley and it we’d been pedantic we’d have continued beyond the hotel to look for the path to the Old Dungeon Ghyll and the route of the Cumbria Way. However, there is a much more direct path along the valley bottom between the two hotels and we followed that.
The Old Dungeon Ghyll (or ODG) is a legend, and our room, up on the second floor, was full of character (if rather small and lacking in hot water until we altered the staff and they restarted a pump). We ate fish and chips in the “Hiker’s Bar”, sitting at a table next to the German Party. And in answer to the question, relative to the other guests, did we feel like really serious walkers or hopelessly unfit and soft?: Probably closer to the latter, but we weren’t really atypical, and there were certainly many people who appeared older than us and even more creaky.
