St John the Baptist Church sits whitewashed and alone in the valley, which is a fair summary of Ulpha itself. The present stone building dates to the seventeenth century, though a church here was first recorded in the thirteenth and first drawn on a map in 1577. It began as a chapel of ease for Millom, several miles off, and its isolation was the point — you came to it across open ground, and you still do.
Ulpha is a scattering of houses along the Duddon, one of the quietest and least-disturbed valleys in the Lake District. The river runs north to south between the high western fells and Broughton-in-Furness, and the village arranges itself loosely along it. There is a post office and village shop, which for a place this remote counts as a genuine amenity.
There is no pub in the village. For that you go three miles up the valley to Seathwaite and the Newfield Inn, a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Lakeland inn and the most famous in the Duddon Valley. Steaks are the speciality. The Sunday roast is roast beef with roast and creamed potatoes, fresh seasonal vegetables, a homemade Yorkshire pudding and real pan gravy. Food is served all day, and there is a takeaway menu if you would rather carry it back down the valley.
William Wordsworth stayed at the Newfield Inn in 1804 with his sister Dorothy. The visit produced a sequence of thirty-five sonnets about the River Duddon, published in 1820, following the river from its source on Wrynose down to the sea. He called it "the loveliest of all valleys." He also wrote a verse in praise of a visit to the Ulpha church, which suggests he got about a bit while he was here.
The walking is the main reason to come. The road out of Ulpha climbs over Birker Fell to Eskdale, one of the minor high passes of the western Lakes, across dramatic open moorland — Birker Fell reaches 417 metres and links the valley to Eskdale to the north. Above the houses lie the Dunnerdale Fells, and the whole Duddon Valley runs from Seathwaite to the sea for anyone inclined to trace Wordsworth's route in reverse.
Getting here takes some doing, which keeps the crowds thin. There is no railway and no regular bus. You come by car along the narrow valley road from Broughton-in-Furness, or over the top from Eskdale by way of Birker Fell, and either way you drive slowly and pull into passing places.
The name is older than any of it. "Ulpha" comes from the Old Norse ulfhaugr, meaning the hill frequented by wolves. The wolves are long gone. The whitewashed church still stands out against the fellside, catching the light on the way down from Birker Fell, the first thing you see and the last.
