Ennerdale Water

Ennerdale Water
Location	Lake District, Cumbria
Coordinates	54°31′12″N 3°22′34″W
Lake type	natural lake, reservoir
Primary inflows	River Liza
Primary outflows	River Ehen
Basin countries	England
Max. length	4.17 km (2.59 mi)
Max. width	1.28 km (0.80 mi)
Surface area	3 km2
Max. depth	45 m (150 ft)
Shore length1	10 km
Surface elevation	113 m
Islands	4
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

The valley from Green Gable

A map of Ennerdale Water from 1948

Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is a glacial lake, with a maximum depth of 45 metres (150 ft), and at 700 to 1,500 metres (1/2 mile to a mile) wide and 3.9 kilometres (2½ miles) is one of the smallest lakes in the area. The small village of Ennerdale Bridge lies to the west of the lake.Two pubs and a few houses, it is a typical small Cumbrian village. It is close to the port of Whitehaven, the town of Cleator Moor and the village of Cleator. The lake, owned by United Utilities, is both a reservoir serving over 30,000 customers daily and a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to its lake-shore habitats.

Due to the Ennerdale valley's remote location, the lack of a public road up the valley and its management by the Forestry Commission, the National Trust and United Utilities, Ennerdale Water is not as much visited by hikers, tourists and cyclists as other lakes in the National Park, and thus has not been spoiled by construction, activity on the lake or the trappings of intensive tourism.

Geography

The lake lies in the eponymous valley of Ennerdale, surrounded some of the highest and best-known fells in Cumbria including; Great Gable (899 m), Green Gable, Brandreth, High Crag, Steeple and Pillar. The level of the lake has been artificially raised by construction of a weir to enable it to be used as a reservoir for Whitehaven. Ennerdale Water is fed by the River Liza and other streams, and in turn feeds the River Ehen which runs to the Irish Sea.

Etymology

The valley 'Ennerdale' is named after the River Ehen (Ehen + dale) which is the valley's main outflow. The lake has been referred to in guidebooks and maps variously as "Brodewater" (1576), "Brodwater" (1695), "Broad Water" (1760), "Ennerdale Water" (1784) and "Ennerdale Lake" in Otley's Guide of (1823). It is now the Ordnance Survey convention to name it "Ennerdale Water".

Notable facts

Though the Lake District is a popular UK location for film shoots, Ennerdale has been left relatively in the shadow, with only a few brief exceptions. The closing sequences of the movie 28 Days Later (2002), directed by Danny Boyle, were filmed around the Ennerdale area, and include a sweeping, panoramic view of the lake.

In 1810 a large carnivore killed hundreds of sheep in and around Ennerdale before it was hunted down and killed. The locals dubbed it the Girt (dialect: "great") Dog of Ennerdale, though it was said to have had the traits of both a dog and a large cat. Once a year, during the last week in August, the Ennerdale Show brings local people together with agricultural displays, competitions, arts and crafts.

Former US President Bill Clinton proposed to his wife Hillary on the banks of Ennerdale Water in 1973.

In 2003 the valley's three major landowners formed the Wild Ennerdale Partnership with a vision "to allow the evolution of Ennerdale as a wild valley for the benefit of people, relying more on natural processes to shape its landscape and ecology".

External links

• Buttermere and Ennerdale information at the National Trust.
• Wild Ennerdale
• The Cumbria Directory - Ennerdale Water
• Wath Brow and Ennerdale Angling Association