Bowderdale is a hamlet in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England, southwest of Kirkby Stephen. It is also the name of a dale in the

Howgill Fells The Howgill Fells are uplands in Northern England between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, lying roughly within a triangle formed by the town of Sedbergh and the villages of Ravenstonedale and Tebay.

, the valley of Bowderdale Beck which rises on the western slopes of Yarlside and flows north to join the

River Lune The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England. Etymology Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic languages, Brittonic ...

below the village of Bowderdale. For most of its length the beck forms the boundary between the parishes of Ravenstonedale and Orton. The name, first recorded in 1224 as ''Butheresdal'', is from the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

''búthar'' 'of the booths or shelters' and ''á'' 'river', so means "valley of the river of booths or shelters".

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Villages in Cumbria Regionally Important Geological / Geomorphological Sites (RIGS) in Cumbria Orton, Westmorland and Furness Ravenstonedale {{Cumbria-geo-stub