Wast Water or Wastwater () is a

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 ...

located in

Wasdale Wasdale (; traditionally ) is a valley and civil parish in the western part of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Irt flows through the valley to its estuary at Ravenglass. A large part of the main valley floor is ...

, a valley in the western part of the

Lake District National Park 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 ...

, England. The lake is almost long and more than wide. It is a

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 in a glacially 'over-deepened' valley. It is the deepest lake in England at . The surface of the lake is about above sea level, while its bottom is over below sea level. It is considered relatively

oligotrophic An oligotroph is an organism that can live in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer nutritionally rich environments. Oligotrophs are characterized by slow growth, low rates o ...

. It is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

Surroundings

The head of the Wasdale Valley is surrounded by some of the highest mountains in England, including

Scafell Pike Scafell Pike () is a mountain in the Lake District region of Cumbria, England. It has an elevation of above sea level, making it the highest and the most prominent mountain in England. The mountain is part of the Scafell massif, an extinct v ...

, Great Gable and Lingmell. The steep slopes on the southeastern side of the lake, leading up to the summits of Whin Rigg and Illgill Head, are known as the "Wastwater

Scree Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. The term ''scree'' is ap ...

s" or on some maps as "The Screes". These screes formed as a result of ice and weathering erosion on the rocks of the

Borrowdale Volcanic Group The Borrowdale Volcanic Group is a group of igneous rock formations named after the Borrowdale area of the Lake District, in England. They are Caradocian (late Ordovician) in age (roughly 450 million years old). It is thought that they represen ...

, that form the fells to the east of the lake, towards Eskdale. They are approximately , from top to base, the base being about below the surface of the lake. A path runs the length of the lake, through the boulders and scree fall at the base of the craggy fell-side. On the northwestern side are the cliffs of Buckbarrow (a part of Seatallan) and the upturned-boat shape of Yewbarrow. Wast Water is the source of the River Irt which flows into the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...

near Ravenglass. Both the lake and Wasdale Screes are protected as

Sites of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

and under European Union law as

Special Areas of Conservation A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

Name origin and pronunciation

"Wastwater" comes from "

" plus English "water". " 'Wasdale lake' or 'the lake of Vatnsá, lake river'. The present name rather curiously contains the reflexes of both

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 ...

'vatn' 'water', 'lake', and

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

'wæter' 'water', with the meaning 'lake' probably influenced by the Old Norse 'vatn'. The valley is pronounced as in ''was'', not with a hard ''a'': the name of the lake similarly but with a soft "s" as in "thou wast". The lake is named "Wast Water" on

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 ...

maps but "Wastwater" is used with roughly equal frequency, including by its owner, the National Trust, along with the Cumbria Tourist Board, and the

Authority.

Points of interest

The Lady in the Lake

In 1976, ''The Wasdale Lady in the Lake'', Margaret Hogg, was murdered by her husband and her body was disposed of in the lake. She was found after eight years, with her body preserved like wax due to the lack of

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

in the water.Lakestay, Wasdale's Lady in the Lake Mystery
/ref>

Underwater gnomes

In February 2005 it was reported that a "

gnome A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

garden" complete with

picket fence Picket fences are a type of fence often used decoratively for domestic boundaries, distinguished by their evenly spaced vertical boards, the ''pickets'', attached to horizontal rails. Picket fences are particularly popular in the United States, ...

had been placed in the lake as a point of interest for divers to explore. It was removed from the bottom of Wastwater after three divers died in the late 1990s. It is thought the divers spent too much time too deep searching for the ornaments. Police divers report a rumour that the garden had been replaced at a depth beyond the lowest the police were allowed to dive. PC Kenny McMahon, a member of the North West Police Underwater Search Unit, said

Water extraction

Water was first pumped from the lake during World War II to supply the Royal Ordnance Factory at Drigg. It is pumped to the nearby

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 ...

nuclear facility as an industrial water supply. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is allowed to extract from the lake a maximum of a day to use on that site.

Favourite view

On 9 September 2007, Wast Water was announced as the winner of a vote to determine "Britain's Favourite View" by viewers of ITV.

Gallery

File:Wasdale from Wastwater 1.JPG, Wasdale from the shores of Wastwater. Yewbarrow is on the left, Great Gable in the centre and the Scafell range on the right. file:Westmorland cairn Great Gable.jpg, The view from the cairn put up by the Westmorland Brothers to the SW of the summit of Great Gable - Wastwater in the distance. file:Illgill head from middle fell.jpg, Illgill Head with Wastwater at its foot. File:Wastwater, Yewbarrow and Great Gable - geograph.org.uk - 1546772.jpg, Wastwater looking towards Wasdale Head

Tributaries

''Clockwise from River Irt'' * Countess Beck * Smithy Beck *

Goat Gill The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the family Bo ...

* Nether Beck * Over Beck * Mosedale Beck * Lingmell Beck * Hollow Gill * Straighthead Gill

In literature

In the book ''

Goodbye, Mr. Chips ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is a novella about the life of a school teacher, Mr. Chipping, written by English writer James Hilton (novelist), James Hilton and first published by Hodder & Stoughton in October 1934. It has been adapted into two featu ...

'', Mr Chipping meets his wife at Wasdale Head.

References

External links

The Wasdale Lady in the LakeThe Cumbria Directory - Wast Water
{{authority control Lakes of the Lake District Cumberland (unitary authority) Underwater diving sites in England Cumberland Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumbria Special Areas of Conservation in Cumbria LWast Oligotrophic lakes