CLICK HERE FOR English Holidays in the Lake District through exploringengland.co.uk |
|
The Lake District, also known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a rural area in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes and its mountains (or fells), and its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth and the Lake Poets. The central and most-visited part of the area is contained in the Lake District National Park—one of fourteen National parks in the United Kingdom. It lies entirely within Cumbria, and is one of England's few mountainous regions. All the land in England higher than three thousand feet above sea level lies within the National Park. The Lake District also contains Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. The Lake District is about 34 miles (55 km) across. Its
features are a result of periods of glaciation, the most recent of which
ended some 15,000 years ago. These include the ice-carved wide U-shaped valleys,
many of which are now filled with the lakes that give the park its name.
The upper regions contain a number of glacial cirques, which are typically
filled with tarns. The higher fells are rocky, with lower fells being open
moorland, notable for its wide bracken and heather coverage. Below the tree
line, native oak woodlands sit alongside nineteenth century pine plantations.
Much of the land is often boggy, due to the high rainfall. The Lake District
is one of the most highly populated national parks. Its total area is near
885 square miles (2,292 km²), and the Lake District was designated as
a National Park in 1951. |