At the end of the road
Great Langdale
A U-shaped glacial valley where climbers' history, a road-end inn and some of the central Lake District's best-known fells meet.
- Best for
- Fell walks and British mountaineering history
- Give it
- A full valley day
- Don't miss
- The Climbers Bar and the pull up Stickle Ghyll
The Fox verdict
Lakeland's road-end valley
Great Langdale puts a historic climbers' inn and a walkers' hotel beneath a dramatic wall of famous fells.
Come for the direct climb beside Stickle Ghyll, the Langdale Pikes or the high ridges at the valley head, then return to the inns used by walkers and climbers. The mix of glacial scenery, mountaineering history and older traces of industry gives the valley more than one reason to look up.
Where to go
Places in Great Langdale
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesNew Dungeon Ghyll Hotel
A traditional walkers' hotel serving pub classics, bar food and walkers' meals, popular with day walkers and families.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes for a bar stop
- Locality
- further down Great Langdale
Langdale Pikes
The best-known pair are Harrison Stickle at 736 metres and Pike o' Stickle at 709 metres, among the most climbed fells in the central Lake District.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 4 hours for a focused ascent
- Locality
- rising above Great Langdale
Crinkle Crags
A dramatic ridge at the valley head and one of the classic Lakeland ridge walks.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 5 hours for a dedicated ridge walk
- Locality
- on the ridge at the valley head
Food & drink
1 placeOld Dungeon Ghyll Hotel
A 300-year-old mountain inn whose flagstoned Climbers Bar became a gathering place for post-war British climbers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes for a bar stop
- Locality
- at the road end in Great Langdale
- Access
- Dogs are welcome in the Hiker's Bar.
Walks & outdoors
1 placeBowfell
A 902-metre fell at the head of the valley, approached by the Band or Three Tarns and known for wide summit views.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 5 hours for a dedicated ascent
- Locality
- at the head of Great Langdale
History & heritage
1 placePike o' Stickle Neolithic Axe Factory
One of Britain's most important Neolithic stone-axe production areas, using volcanic tuff that was traded across Britain and Ireland.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 4 hours for a focused ascent
- Locality
- high on Pike o' Stickle above the valley head
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Three ways to explore Great Langdale
Signature outings
The room without music
Settle onto a bench in the flagstoned Climbers Bar, the post-war meeting place of British climbers.
Bowfell at the valley head
Approach Bowfell by the Band or Three Tarns for a 902-metre summit above the head of Great Langdale.
A Stone Age workshop
Climb Pike o' Stickle, where volcanic tuff was worked into axes traded across Britain and Ireland.
The village story
Great Langdale: Climbers, Crags and the Road End
The unchanged Travel Fox story follows Great Langdale from its famous climbers' bar onto the fells, through two very different industries, and back to the room where the road stops.
The Bar at the Road End
The Climbers Bar at the Old Dungeon Ghyll was a shippon — a cattle shed — until 1949. Someone converted it, and it became the most famous climbers' pub in England. The floor is still flagstone, the seating is benches, and there is no music.
The hotel sits at the end of the road. There is no through route out of Great Langdale: the B5343 runs in from Skelwith Bridge, reaches the inn, and stops. Beyond it the valley closes into a wall of fells, which is why people come.
An Inn Built for Climbers
The Old Dungeon Ghyll is around three hundred years old. An 1885 rate book records it as the Middlefell Inn, run by John Bennett, a guide for tourists — the job existed then too. It was a hotel and farm until the shippon conversion. After the war it became the gathering place for British climbing: every major club held its annual dinner here, and most of the 1953 Everest team stayed at some point. Sir John Hunt, Tom Bourdillon and George Band all drank in the bar.
You can eat well. Fish and chips, pub classics, daily specials, most of it home-made down to the chips, jam and marmalade, with produce sourced within twenty-five miles. Food runs from noon to nine, with a fuller menu in the evening. Dogs are allowed in the Hiker's Bar, and there's a beer garden for the days the weather permits one.
Where the Fell Days Begin
Further down the valley is the New Dungeon Ghyll, a more straightforward walkers' hotel doing bar food and walkers' meals. It is less famous than the ODG and busier with day walkers and families, partly because the classic ascents start from its car park.
That is where you go up. The Langdale Pikes — Harrison Stickle at 736 metres, Pike o' Stickle at 709 — are the most climbed fells in the central Lake District, and they rise straight off the valley floor. Bowfell (902m) stands at the head of the valley, and Crinkle Crags run along the ridge to the southwest, one of the classic Lakeland traverses. For something shorter there's the direct pull up Stickle Ghyll to Stickle Tarn, past the waterfall — steep, popular, and over before lunch.
Two Industries on the Heights
The tarn has a small Victorian dam. It was raised to supply water not to a town but to the Elterwater Gunpowder Works.
Pike o' Stickle has an older industry still. Four to five thousand years ago it held one of the most important Neolithic axe factories in Britain. Axes cut from the hard volcanic tuff up there have been found across Britain and Ireland — a stone-age export trade running off the top of a Cumbrian fell.
Getting In and Coming Back Down
There is no church in the valley and no shop. The nearest of either is at Chapel Stile, or Ambleside further out. There is no railway either. In season the 516 Langdale Rambler runs up from Ambleside to the ODG car park; otherwise it's the A593 as far as Skelwith Bridge, then the B5343, and then the road runs out.
Whatever you go up, you come back down to the same room: flagstone floor, benches, no music, a dog at your feet in the Hiker's Bar and chips that were made on the premises. The road ended here a long time before you did.
Stay around Lake District
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Lake District, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel — odg.co.uk other published source
- New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel — newdungeonghyll.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Langdale Pikes — visitlakedistrict.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Bowfell — visitlakedistrict.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Crinkle Crags — ramblers.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Pike o' Stickle Neolithic Axe Factory — heritagegateway.org.uk other published source