Newlands Valley

The Newlands Valley is in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is regarded as one of the most picturesque and quiet valleys in the national park, even though it is situated very close to the popular tourist town of Keswick and the busy A66 road.

The valley forms part of the civil parish of Above Derwent, within the Borough of Allerdale.

Early history

The earliest signs of human settlement in the valley have been found at Ullock, where evidence of a

The name “Newlands” did not come into being until after the 13th century when it was used to describe the usable new land which had been created at the foot of the valley between Portinscale and Braithwaite by the draining of a large swampy and marshy area. At the start of the 14th century the rents paid by the tenant farmers in the valley started to rise steadily as the cultivated areas were extended and the population increased. Some of the families in the valley have lived in the area for hundreds of years, with the Fischers, Tickells, Thwaites, Graves and Maysons all mentioned in the manorial records from the 15th century and still living in the valley in the 20th century.[1]

Settlements

The valley has a minor motor road that traverses its entire length; it starts at the village of

Further up the valley is the hamlet of Little Town, which has been made famous by the writings of Beatrix Potter, whose 1905 children's book The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is based in the area and opens with the line "Once upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good little girl--only she was always losing her pocket- handkerchiefs!".^[4] Little Town consists of a farm and a few cottages, and is the site of the small whitewashed Newlands Church, which was originally built in the 16th century but had fallen into disrepair by the 19th century. It was gradually rebuilt over a number of years and was re-opened in 1885. The stained glass window on the east wall dates from 1845, while the south facing window is a memorial to a World War I soldier.

This chapel was visited by

Mining

The Newlands Valley was extensively mined and quarried for many centuries; lead, copper, silver and even gold have been extracted over the years. The most famous mine in the Lake District is situated in Newlands. This is the Goldscope mine, on the lower slopes of Hindscarth near Low Snab farm, which has operated since the 16th century. It yielded such large amounts of lead and copper that it was called “Gottesgab” (God's Gift) by the German miners brought over to develop the mine in its early days. The mine closed at the end of the 19th century, not because it was exhausted but because the mine's main shaft had gone so deep it had become uneconomic to pump the water from it. Other well-known mines in the valley are Barrow lead mine, on the slopes of Barrow, which closed in 1888; the Yewthwaite lead mine, which occupies a small valley between the fells of Catbells and Maiden Moor and ceased production in 1893; and the long-closed Dale Head copper mine, established by German miners in Elizabethan times.

Landscape and scenery

The scenery of the Newlands valley consists of farmland in the valley bottom and soaring fells above. Fells that have their foot in the valley include

• Coledale horseshoe
• Newlands horseshoe

References