Brothers Water is a small lake in the

Hartsop Hartsop is a small village in the English Lake District. It lies in the Patterdale valley, near Brothers Water, Hayeswater and Kirkstone Pass. It consists of 17th-century grey stone cottages, like so many of its neighbours. Hartsop retains it ...

valley, in the eastern region of the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

in England. Once called Broad Water, it lies at the northern end of

Kirkstone Pass Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of . It is the District's highest pass traversed by road; the A592 between Ambleside in Rothay Valley and Patterdale in Ullswat ...

, affording views on the descent towards

Patterdale Patterdale (Saint Patrick's Dale) is a small village and civil parish in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. It is in the eastern part of the Lake District, and the name is also used for the long valley in which the villa ...

. The name was changed in the 19th century after two brothers drowned there. BrothersWater20090103

Dorothy Wordsworth Dorothy Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romanticism, Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had ...

, having left

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

sitting on Cow Bridge, walked beside the lake on 16 April 1802, commented on: The lake is not among the most popular in the

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

, being shallow and full of reeds. Water lilies bloom in July, providing colour. To the north-east of Brothers Water is the village of

, which has several 17th-century stone farm buildings and cottages. Some of the buildings still contain spinning-rooms where villagers would have made their own clothing, selling any surplus in the local market towns. The word

means "valley of the deer", which would have lived in the woodlands of the lower areas of the surrounding fells. A walk through woodland skirts the western shore. From its northern end the walk leads to Patterdale. Southward it heads over Kirkstone Pass to

Ambleside Ambleside is a town in the civil parish of Lakes and the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Westmorland and located in the Lake District National Park, the town sits at the ...

. On the western side of Brothers Water is Hartsop Hall. The 16th-century building passed to Sir John Lowther in the 17th century and is now owned by the National Trust. The village of

lies near the northeast corner of the lake. Brothers Water may be classified in either of two ways: as one of the Lake District's smallest lakes or one of its largest tarns. The lake is home to a

trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...

population and harbours a rare species of fish, the

schelly The schelly (''Coregonus stigmaticus'') is a living fresh water fish of the salmon family, endemic to four lakes in the Lake District, England. Its taxonomy is disputed with some recognizing it as a distinct species and others as a variant of t ...

References

Lakes of the Lake District Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumbria Westmorland Patterdale {{Cumbria-geo-stub