Kirkstone Pass

Kirkstone Pass
Kirkstone Pass
	Looking north down Kirkstone Pass
Elevation	1,489 ft (454 m)
Traversed by	A592 road
Coordinates	54.47733°N 2.92283°W
	Kirkstone Pass Location in the Lake District National Park Kirkstone Pass Location in Eden, Cumbria

Kirkstone Pass is a mountain pass in the English Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. It is at an altitude of 1,489 feet (454 m).

The Kirk stone, and nearby nearly cuboid stone

The Kirkstone Pass Inn

It is the District's highest pass traversed by road, the A592 road between Ambleside in Rothay Valley and Patterdale in Ullswater Valley. The road gradient approaches 1 in 4. The picturesque view down into Patterdale has Brothers Water as its focal point.

The Kirkstone Pass Inn stands close to the summit. Once a vital coaching inn, it now caters primarily for tourists. It is the third-highest public house in England.[lower-alpha 1]

Slate quarrying

Lead and copper ore mining and slate mining has spanned centuries.

Petts Quarry worked by Kirkstone Green Slate Company is just to the Ambleside side of the summit. Nearby is Hartsop Hall lead mine.

Caudale slate mine is a few miles further down, on the Ullswater side, and was last worked at the beginning of the 20th century; all its adits are now blocked.

Name

The bottom of The Struggle in Ambleside

Kirkstone Pass descending to Brothers Water

The name of the pass comes from a prominent stone, the Kirkstone, which stands a few yards from the A592 on the Patterdale side of the inn. Its shadow resembles a steeple; 'kirk' means church in old Norse and was a variant in related Old English.

In local names the climb from Ambleside is known as The Struggle.

Cultural references

In Cue For Treason, best-known novel of children's writer Geoffrey Trease, much of it set in Cumbria, the narrator's friend long uses the name "Kit Kirkstone", taken from the pass.[1]

Witch of the Westmorland by musician Archie Fisher includes the lyric "weary by Ullswater, and the misty brake fern way, down through the cleft of the Kirkstone Pass, the winding water lay".

Notes

The highest is the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire; the next is the Cat and Fiddle Inn in the Peak District.

References

Trease, Geoffrey (1940). "2: Escape". Cue for Treason (Hardcover). England: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631003502. Kit Kirkstone, he said without hesitating...he was lying......he's making that up; it's the name of a pass between the mountains, over to Patterdale.

External links

Media related to Kirkstone Pass at Wikimedia Commons

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[1] The highest is the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire; the next is the Cat and Fiddle Inn in the Peak District.

[2] Trease, Geoffrey (1940). "2: Escape". Cue for Treason (Hardcover). England: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631003502. Kit Kirkstone, he said without hesitating...he was lying......he's making that up; it's the name of a pass between the mountains, over to Patterdale.