Threlkeld

An Inn beneath Blencathra

The Horse & Farrier Inn began as a roadside farm where travellers watered their horses and bought food. The date 1688 stands above the door of the coaching inn it became. Slate floors, beamed ceilings and a fire give it an old pub feel; rooms upstairs and a bar serving local and guest ales still welcome travellers.

The kitchen serves pub meals made with locally sourced ingredients, with lunch, dinner and Sunday menus. It is an easy stop for a meal or a pint after a fell walk.

Ridges, Valley and Ancient Stones

Blencathra, also called Saddleback, reaches 868 metres above sea level over Threlkeld. Hall's Fell Ridge offers an easier ascent than Sharp Edge, the narrow arête often compared with Striding Edge on Helvellyn. Sharp Edge demands comfort with exposure and steep drops.

Glenderaterra Valley offers a quieter walk: from Threlkeld, the approach climbs west and then north above Glenderaterra Beck. About 2.2 miles from Threlkeld in a straight line, Castlerigg Stone Circle stands on a dramatic hillside. Its Neolithic stones were probably raised about 4,500 years ago, though their exact date is uncertain.

Norse Roots and Quarry Lives

Threlkeld's name comes from Old Norse and means "the well of the thrall"; a thrall was a person bound in service to a lord.

Zinc and lead discoveries at the start of the twentieth century made Threlkeld a minor boom town. More than a hundred men worked at the local mine, and terraced houses were built to house workers. Granite quarrying was a separate industry and continued into the 1980s. Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum now presents this industrial history through a working narrow-gauge railway, a shop and a collection of mining equipment. On the opposite side of the valley from the village, Threlkeld once had a station on the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway, beside the quarry. Trains no longer run, but part of the old trackbed is the Keswick to Threlkeld Railway Trail for walkers and cyclists.

River, Road and Village Church

The River Glenderamackin runs below the houses, the A66 runs past just outside them, and the Keswick–Penrith bus stops in the village. Keswick itself is four miles west. St Mary's Church, medieval underneath and mostly nineteenth-century on top, sits with Skiddaw to the north and Helvellyn away to the south, which is a fair view for a Sunday.