Hartsop

Spinning galleries and deep quiet

Several of the 17th-century cottages in Hartsop still have their spinning galleries — external wooden balconies, built onto the upper floor, where wool was once spun in the open air. Most Lake District villages that had them have lost them. Hartsop kept several, in their original form, which is part of why people who care about this sort of thing come here to look at the outside of houses.

There is no pub in the village, no shop, and no church. What Hartsop has is grey stone, a valley, and quiet. It sits in a side valley at the head of the Patterdale valley, just below Kirkstone Pass — at 454 metres the highest road pass in the Lake District — and it is one of the quietest, least altered hamlets in the eastern Lakes.

Practicalities and the valley south

The two nearby pub options are the White Lion Inn in Patterdale and the Brotherswater Inn at Sykeside, near the foot of Kirkstone Pass. St Patrick's Church is also in Patterdale.

Brothers Water lies just to the south, the fells of Hartsop Dodd and Caudale Moor rising steeply off its far shore.

Waterside miles and high ground

The walking is the reason to stay. The Brothers Water circuit passes a 16th-century farmhouse and follows the western shore, with 60 metres of climbing and a short section beside the A592. It is a low-level lakeside walk rather than a fell route. Brothers Water was originally called Broad Water. It was renamed in the 19th century after two brothers drowned there, and it is one of the smallest named lakes in the district.

For height, walk up Hayeswater Gill from the village to Hayeswater, a reservoir-tarn sitting in a high corrie, and carry on to High Street at 828 metres — the ridge the Romans ran a road along, over the tops rather than through the passes.

Mining memory and the road in

Hartsop Hall, the 16th-century farmhouse the circuit passes, belongs to the National Trust. It was the home of the de Lancasters, then in the 17th century passed to Sir John Lowther, whose family became the Earls of Lonsdale. Above it are the workings of the Hartsop Hall mine, dug for lead from the 18th century. This was a mining community once, which is easy to forget when you're looking at the balconies.

Getting here needs a car. There's no railway and no regular bus to the village; the seasonal 508 from Penrith stops at Patterdale. You come off the A592 south of Glenridding and turn at the Brothers Water car park.

Where the road gives out

Then the road runs out, more or less, and that's the appeal.