23 Facts About Lake District

1.

Lake District, known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England.

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2.

Lake District is today completely within Cumbria, a county and administrative unit created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972.

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3.

Lake District is very nearly contained within a box of trunk routes and major A roads.

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4.

Bassenthwaite Lake District occupies the valley between this massif and the North Western Fells.

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5.

The southwestern Lake District ends near the Furness peninsula and Barrow-in-Furness, a town which many Lake District residents rely on for basic amenities.

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6.

Lake District extends to the coast of the Irish Sea from Drigg in the north to Silecroft in the south, encompassing the estuaries of the Esk and its tributaries, the Irt and the Mite.

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7.

Lake District is home to a great variety of wildlife, because of its varied topography, lakes, and forests.

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8.

Lake District is home to a range of bird species, and the RSPB maintain a reserve in Haweswater.

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9.

Lakes and waters of the Lake District do not naturally support as many species of fish as other similar habitats in the south of the country and elsewhere in Europe.

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10.

In Neolithic times, the Lake District was a major source of stone axes, examples of which have been found all over Britain.

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11.

Early visitors to the Lake District, who travelled for the education and pleasure of the journey, include Celia Fiennes who in 1698 undertook a journey the length of England, including riding through Kendal and over Kirkstone Pass into Patterdale.

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12.

The Lake District NP publishes a list and map of car parks within its authority, allowing tourists to plan their visits accordingly.

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13.

Lake District was joined two years later by a second, and since then the number of rangers has been rising.

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14.

Windermere Lake District Steamers are Cumbria's most popular charging tourist attraction with about 1.

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15.

The Lake District now has a growing reputation for its fine dining although standard pub and cafe fare continues to dominate.

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16.

Lake District is intimately associated with English literature of the 18th and 19th centuries.

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17.

Lake District is mentioned in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; Elizabeth Bennet look forward to a holiday there with her aunt and uncle and is "excessively disappointed" upon learning they cannot travel that far.

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18.

Children's author Arthur Ransome lived in several areas of the Lake District, and set five of his Swallows and Amazons series of books, published between 1930 and 1947, in a fictionalised Lake District setting.

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19.

Lake District is the setting for the 1977 Richard Adams' novel The Plague Dogs.

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20.

Lake District has been the setting for crime novels by Reginald Hill, Val McDermid and Martin Edwards.

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21.

Also set in the Lake District is Sophie Jackson's mystery novel The Woman Died Thrice.

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22.

Memoirist and nature writer James Rebanks has published several books about the Lake District, including two acclaimed books that detail his life as a sheep farmer: The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District and English Pastoral: An Inheritance .

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23.

Several words and phrases are local to the Lake District and are part of the Cumbrian dialect, though many are shared by other northern dialects.

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