Carrock Fell is a

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of M ...

in the English

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 ...

, situated in the northern region of the national park, north-east of Keswick.

Etymology

The name ''Carrock'' is a Brittonic formation. Sometimes stated as deriving from ''carreg'' meaning "rock, stony place", early attestations of the name suggest that is more likely to represent ''*carr'', "rock, hard-surface", with the adjectival and nominal suffix ''-ǭg'', sometimes meaning "abounding in".

Height

The fell's elevation seems to have decreased by two metres in recent years. The

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

now give it a height of in the most recent map updates after having recorded it at for many years. Many guidebooks and mountain tables still record 663 metres as the “official” height.

Topography

Well known Lake District scribe

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright Order of the British Empire, MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalking, fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial ...

rated Carrock Fell as the second most exciting and interesting fell in the northern area of Lakeland (after

Blencathra Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly of the Cumbrian Mountains, in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top at . Name For many years, Ordnance Surv ...

and before

Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is traditionally considered to be the List of Wainwrights, fourth-highest peak but depending on what topographic prominence is thought to be significant is also ...

), it has special appeal regarding geology, mining and history and its rocky nature makes it stand out from the neighbouring fells which are mainly grassy and smooth. Carrock Fell is bounded to the south and east by the

River Caldew The River Caldew is a river running through Cumbria in England. The river rises high up on the northern flanks of Skiddaw, in the Northern Fells area of the English Lake District, and flows in a northerly direction until it joins the Rive ...

into which all drainage from the fell goes to find its way eventually to the

Solway Firth The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...

Geology

Carrock Fell's geology is unique in the Lake District in that it is predominantly composed of

gabbro Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ch ...

, a rough igneous rock that also makes up the famous Black

Cuillin The Cuillin () is a range of mostly jagged rocky mountains on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The main Cuillin ridge is also called the Black Cuillin to distinguish it from the Red Cuillin ('), which lie to the east of Glen Sligachan.R. Anderson & ...

on the

Isle of Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of ...

. Gabbro is an excellent “clean” rock for climbers and Carrock Fell offers the only rock climbing of quality in the northern fells, the majority of which are made up of the unsuitable crumbly

Skiddaw Slate Skiddaw slate is an early Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rock, as first identified on the slopes of Skiddaw in the English Lake District. The base of this series is unknown. The thickness could, therefore, amount to several thousand fee ...

. The fell is rich in mineral ores and has been mined extensively for many centuries with

tungsten Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

and

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

all being extracted from the fell. The most famous mine on the fell was the Carrock Mine, the only source of tungsten in Britain outside of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

and

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. The mine was situated in Grainsgill Beck on the south western flanks of the fell with the main

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) or stulm is a horizontal or nearly horizontal passage to an underground mine. Miners can use adits for access, drainage, ventilation, and extracting minerals at the lowest convenient level. Adits are a ...

at a height of 340 metres. The mine was opened in 1854 but has only been worked in periods when the price of tungsten has been high, for example during wartime, the mine was worked extensively during both

World Wars A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I (19 ...

and the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

when supplies of Tungsten were threatened. The mine closed in 1981 and in 1988 the site was bulldozed and landscaped to its original outline.

History

Carrock Fell is also the site of an

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

which crowns the summit. Only the foundations of the walls remain. The fort is oval shaped and is believed to have been built by the

Celt The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

s and destroyed by the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

in their conquest of northern England. Carrock Fell's other claim to historical fame is that it was climbed by well-known British novelists

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

and

Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1860), a mystery novel and early sensation novel, and for ''The Moonsto ...

in 1857 during a tour of northern

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

. Dickens had read about the fell and had made up his mind to climb it. Collins sprained his ankle and Dickens had to help him back down the mountain, according to The New Yorker 7/25/11 in an article by Jonathan Rosen. (Collins wrote the first English-language detective novel, ''The Moonstone''.) Later, Collins and Dickens collaborated on a humorous narrative based in part upon their climb up Carrock Fell, entitled ''The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices''.

Ascents

Despite all its other attractions, Carrock Fell is primarily the haunt of the fell walker; it is mostly climbed from the surfaced road which goes to the site of the Carrock Mine. It is possible to leave a car at and then climb the fell by the steep south-west slopes. Carrock Fell can also be climbed from the road between Mungrisedale and Hesket Newmarket, threading a way through the craggy and bouldery eastern slopes known as "Apronful of Stones".

Summit

The top of the fell offers a good view to the east towards the

Pennines The Pennines (), also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a range of highland, uplands mainly located in Northern England. Commonly described as the "Vertebral column, backbone of England" because of its length and position, the ra ...

across the Eden valley. Carrock Fell has two subsidiary summits, Round Knott () and Milton Hill () which lie to the west of the main summit on the ridge which continues to the adjoining fell of High Pike.

References

External links

Aerial photo of Carrock Fell hill fort
*

{{Iron Age hillforts in England Hewitts of England Nuttalls Fells of the Lake District Hill forts in Cumbria Mungrisdale