Devoke Water is a small

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much lar ...

in the mid-west region of the English Lake District, in the county of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. ...

. It is the largest tarn in the Lake District. It lies on

Birker Fell Birker Fell, also known as ''Birker Moor'', is an upland wilderness area in the western portion of the Lake District National Park, in Cumbria, England. Rather than being formed of one single high peak, the fell is a broad, undulating area, approxi ...

, 1 km to the west of the road between

Ulpha Ulpha is a small village and civil parish in the Duddon Valley in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it forms part of the borough of Copeland. At Ulpha a road leaves the Duddon Valley to cross B ...

and Eskdale, at an altitude of 770 feet (223 m). It has a depth of . It can be reached via a bridle track. There is a two-storey stone boathouse-cum-refuge and a ruined stable. Dedvoke waters Eskdale Cumbria

Devoke Water has an outlet in the north west, via Linbeck Gill, which joins the River Esk at the hamlet of Linbeck. The fishing rights to Devoke Water are owned by

Millom Millom is a town and civil parish on the north shore of the estuary of the River Duddon in southwest Cumbria, historically part of Cumberland, England. It is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, about north of Barrow-in-Fur ...

Anglers and it is stocked with

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morp ...

. It also holds

perch Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...

The Circuit of Devoke Water

One of the chapters of

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

's ''

The Outlying Fells of Lakeland ''The Outlying Fells of Lakeland'' is a 1974 book written by Alfred Wainwright dealing with hills in and around the Lake District of England. It differs from Wainwright's ''Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Pictorial Guides'' in that each ...

'' is a circular walk anticlockwise around Devoke Water, starting and finishing on the road to the east. He describes the summits Rough Crag at , Water Crag at , White Pike at , Yoadcastle at , Woodend Height at and Seat How at , and says that "it is predominantly for the mountain prospect that this walk gains a strong recommendation", noting that the view from the summits includes

Pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

and nearby fells to the north, the

Scafell Scafell ( or ; also spelled Sca Fell, previously Scawfell) is a mountain in the English Lake District, part of the Southern Fells. Its height of makes it the second-highest mountain in England after its neighbour Scafell Pike, from which ...

group to the north north east and the

Bowfell Bowfell (named ''Bow Fell'' on Ordnance Survey maps) is a pyramid-shaped mountain lying at the heart of the English Lake District, in the Southern Fells area. It is the sixth-highest mountain in the Lake District and one of the most popula ...

group to the north east, as well as the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...

and

Sellafield Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nu ...

power station. He warns that "Linbeck Gill is uncrossable dryshod after rain". All six summits are classified as Birketts. Yoadcastle is classed as a Fellranger, being described by Richards in the ''Coniston'' volume of his book series. It is among the 21 such summits (originally 18 before the extension of the Lake District) which are not included in Wainwright's main list of 214.

References

Lakes of the Lake District Fells of the Lake District Borough of Copeland {{Cumbria-geo-stub