Devoke Water is a small

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

in the south west 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 ...

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,4 ...

. It is the largest tarn in the Lake District, a tarn being a specific type of

glacial lake A glacial lake is a body of water with origins from glacier activity. They are formed when a glacier erodes the land and then melts, filling the depression created by the glacier. Formation Near the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,0 ...

formed when a hollow is created on a mountain. The lake is long, has an area of and lies at an altitude of on Birker Fell. Its outflow, to the north west, is Linbeck Gill, which joins the River Esk before flowing into the Irish Sea at Ravenglass. The lake is in the unitary authority of

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 ...

and the ceremonial county of

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 ...

. Its south-western shore forms part of the south-western boundary of Eskdale

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

, in which it is situated. Devoke Water can be reached via a bridle track. There is a two-storey stone boathouse-cum-refuge and a ruined stable. The fishing rights to the lake are owned by

Millom Millom is a town and civil parish on the north shore of the estuary of the River Duddon in southernmost Cumberland, Cumbria, England. It is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, about north of Barrow-in-Furness ( by road) and ...

Anglers and it is stocked with

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

. It also holds

perch Perch is a common name for freshwater fish from the genus ''Perca'', which belongs to the family Percidae of the large order Perciformes. The name comes from , meaning the type species of this genus, the European perch (''P. fluviatilis'') ...

The Circuit of Devoke Water

One of the chapters of

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 ...

's '' The Outlying Fells of Lakeland'' 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 and nearby fells to the north, the Scafell group to the north north east and the Bowfell group to the north east, as well as the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

and

Sellafield Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, 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 storage, nuclear waste processing and storage and nucle ...

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 Cumberland (unitary authority) {{Cumbria-geo-stub