Hart Side
| Hart Side | |||
| Cumberland | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Hart Side seen from Great Dodd | |||
| Range: | Lake District Eastern Fells | ||
| Summit: | 2,480 feet NY359198 54°34’10"N, 2°59’35"W | ||
Hart Side is a Cumberland fell which is a subsidiary top on one of the east ridges of Stybarrow Dodd. The hill is in the Lake District, west of Ullswater on the main Helvellyn ridge which in parts marks the county border with Westmorland. With a height of 2,480 feet, Hart Side rises above the col separating it from Green Side by 75 feet.
Alfred Wainwright treated Hart Side as a distinct fell, and devoted a separate chapter to it, which qualifies it therefore as a "Wainwright".[1][2] By the same token, the lower Watermillock Common is considered part of the fell. Other writers have simply focussed on routes to and between the many individual tops here and throughout Lakeland.[3][4]
Hart Side and Green Side are the two ends of a ridge which is composed of andesite rock, a sequence of lava flows from ancient volcanoes. A lead vein in the Green Side end of the ridge was exploited by the most successful lead mine in the Lake District until it closed in 1962.
Landscape
The east ridge of Stybarrow Dodd falls about 262 feet to a broad col from which the ground rises again. From this point the combined Hart Side and Green Side ridge has a smooth, rounded, grassy top and winds for some 1½ miles to the north east. After rising 100 feet to White Stones, the summit of Green Side (2,608 feet), it loses 203 feet of height before rising again from a broad, gentle col, but regains only 75 feet to the summit of Hart Side (2,608 feet).
At this point the ridge turns abruptly to the south of east and after losing roughly 66 feet again it rises to a broad, rounded, unnamed grassy swelling with a height of about 2,428 feet. A north-east shoulder of this swelling ends with steeper gradients on all sides and a scattering of broken crags ahead. This shoulder was named Birkett Fell in 1963, but it has prominence of just 6½ feet[5] above the ridge it terminates.
This ridge of Stybarrow Dodd continues to the east as Watermillock Common after a further drop of over 656 feet.
To the north and west of the Hart Side and Green Side ridge, and to the east of Birkett Fell, grassy slopes drop into Deepdale, with an outcrop of rock just beneath the Hart Side summit, called Hart Crag, and the broken crags beneath Birkett Fell. This Deepdale should not be confused with the valley of the same name near Patterdale. These sides of the ridge are drained by Aira Beck into Ullswater.
Much steeper crags line the south of Hart Side and the east of Green Side. This is Glencoyne Head, where a corrie glacier formed during the final phase of the last ice age and created these steep cliffs.[6]:20 These slopes drain into Glencoyne and then to Ullswater.
To complete the picture, the south side of Green Side also falls steeply and over rocky crags in places into the valley of Stick’s Gill (East), which also drains into Ullswater by way of the Glenridding Beck.
Summit
The summit of Hart Side is mainly grassy but with a scattering of rocky boulders showing though the grass. Some small cairns have been built on it, and there is another cairn some 164 feet north of the summit, but the most unusual features are a long east-west trench which has been dug a few yards to the south, and a shallow hollow measuring 23 feet by 13 feet just to the north. The trench was probably dug by prospectors looking for an extension to the vein being mined beneath Green Side, and the hollow may have been the site of some shelter.[2] A vigorous programme of exploration, both underground and on the surface, was begun in 1947 when it was clear that the Greenside Mine could not last much longer, but nothing was found.[7] In Alfred Wainwright's 1955 drawing the trench looks much cleaner and fresher than it is today[1]
The view from the summit is restricted both by the higher ridge to the west, and by intervening land to the east which conceals most of Ullswater.[1] There are distant glimpses of Catstye Cam and Helvellyn, a closer view of Great Dodd and Stybarrow Dodd across Deepdale, and even a glimpse of Scafell Pike through the gap between Green Side and Stybarrow Dodd.[2]
A much better viewpoint for Ullswater and the east is found at Birkett Fell, where there is a cairn built from stones carried up from the shores of Ullswater by members of the Outward Bound School in Watermillock. The cairn carries a stone plaque with the name of the fell, which was named in honour of Lord Birkett of Ulverston and in recognition of the part played by him in preventing Ullswater from being made into a reservoir.[2]
Ascents
The whole of the Hart Side and Green Side ridge, of Watermillock Common, and much of Glencoyne is now Open Access land.
Several routes lead to the top of Hart Side from the north east. From the car park at High Row an ascent can be made via Dowthwaitehead and Birkett Fell. From Dockray, or the two car parks on the A5091 road (which serve Aira Force), ascents can be made by way of Watermillock Common (or the slopes to the south of it) and Birkett Fell.
From the south an ascent is possible via the south-east shoulder of Green Side, above the old Greenside lead mine, or a steep, pathless ascent can be made from the old Miners’ Balcony Path around the head of Glencoyne beside Deepdale Slack and between the crags.[2]
Hart Side may also be visited as part of a circuit of Deepdale which takes in the three Dodds.
Geology
The rocks of Hart Side and Green Side are all part of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, formed on the margin of an ancient continent during a period of intense volcanic activity, roughly 450 million years ago in the Ordovician Period. [8]
Almost all the rocks on the fell belong to the 'Birker Fell Andesite Formation'.[9] This was formed predominantly by eruptions of mobile andesitic lava from shallow-sided volcanoes. These rocks are part of a thick succession of lava sheets found around the western and northern sides of the Lake District.[6]
Some microgranite dykes were later intruded into the andesite which now forms the crags of Glencoyne Head.[9] These are of early Devonian age and were probably associated with the later stages of the emplacement of the granite batholith which underlies the Lake District.[8]:95, 100
Also associated with the granite batholith was the creation of mineral veins in parts of the Lake District.[8]:189 The richest known lead vein of all was found crossing the south-east shoulder of Green Side. This, the Greenside Lead Vein runs in a north-south direction and dips steeply to the east at 70°. It was up to 59 feet wide in the highest workings of the Greenside Mine, but averaged about 8 feet wide in deeper workings. The vein contained galena in a mixture of quartz and smashed rock. Galena (lead sulphide) is an ore of lead. The ore from Greenside also yielded 10 oz of silver per ton of lead. Higher levels of the vein also contained quantities of baryte (barium sulphate), although at the time this had no commercial value. Very small amounts of blende (zinc sulphide) and chalcopyrite (copper-iron sulphide) were found in the deeper levels, but never in recoverable quantities. [7]
The Greenside Mine worked this vein from some time in the 1700s until reserves were exhausted in 1962. The main entrance was in Glenridding at Lucy’s Tongue,[7] but an exploratory level was driven into the cliffs at the top of Glencoyne, from just below the Miners' Balcony Path. In 1955 this was incorporated into an emergency back exit from the mine.[10] Alfred Wainwright found the hole, but thought it was just a cave.[1]
Underlying the andesite lavas of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group are the mudstones of the Skiddaw Group of rocks. These were encountered in the lowest workings of the Greenside Mine, some 3,000 feet beneath the surface of the fell. The lead vein the miners were following became barren on encountering these rocks.[11]
Watermillock Common
- Main article: Watermillock Common
Watermillock Common (NY379197) is a ridge of high land which rises 1,312 feet above Ullswater marking the end part of one of the long eastern ridges of Stybarrow Dodd, 656 feet lower than the Hart Side part of the ridge.
The highest point on Watermillock Common is Swineside Knott, 1,814 feet, a rounded grassy mound with what has been claimed to be “the most sumptuous view” of Ullswater;[2]
Names
'Hart Side' takes its name from the fell side, frequented by harts.[12] The name of the fell is first recorded by the Ordnance Survey in 1867. Panoramas in earlier 19th-century guidebooks label the fell as ‘Glen Coin Fell’, which may have been an alternative or an earlier name.
'Green Side' also takes its name from the fell side, the two English words being self-explanatory.
'Watermillock Common' was the unenclosed grazing land of the parish of Watermillock. It lay outside the enclosed Gowbarrow deer park, the wall of which may be seen crossing the hill on its south side.
'Birkett Fell', previously marked on Ordnance Survey maps of 1867 and 1920 as Nameless Fell was named in 1963 to commemorate Lord Birkett of Ulverston.[12] In 1962, two days before his death, Lord Birkett made his last speech in the House of Lords in which, with the eloquence for which he was famed, he opposed a provision in the Manchester Corporation Bill which would have allowed Ullswater to be made into a reservoir for that city. As a result, that provision was voted out of the bill, to the great delight of many who loved the Lake District.
Pictures
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The whole Green Side and Hart Side ridge, with Watermillock Common to the left, seen from Great Dodd
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Looking along the ridge from Green Side towards Hart Side -
The summit of Hart Side -
The prospecting trench on the summit of Hart Side, partly filled with snow, with Green Side and Stybarrow Dodd in the distance -
The cairn on Birkett Fell with Stybarrow Dodd beyond -
Watermillock Common seen from Heron Pike -
Watermillock Common seen from the north, across the valley of Aira Beck -
Common Fell on Watermillock Common, seen from Bracken How -
Glacial erratic boulder on Common Fell -
Emergency exit from the Greenside Mine in Glencoyne
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Wainwright, Alfred: A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Book One — The Eastern Fells (1955)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Mark Richards (2008) [2003]. Near Eastern Fells. Milnthorpe: Cicerone Press. ISBN 978-1-852845414.
- ↑ Bill Birkett (1994). Complete Lakeland Fells. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0583-32209-3.
- ↑ John and Anne Nuttall (1990). The Mountains of England and Wales; Volume 2: England. Milnthorpe: Cicerone Press. ISBN 1-85284-037-4.
- ↑ "Database of British and Irish Hills". http://www.hills-database.co.uk/downloads.html. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 D. G. Woodhall (2000). Geology of the Keswick District (Sheet Explanation of BGS Sheet E029). Nottingham: British Geological Survey.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 John Adams (1995). Mines of the Lake District Fells. Skipton: Dalesman. ISBN 0852069316.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 P. Stone (2010). British Regional Geology: Northern England. Nottingham: British Geological Society. ISBN 978-0852726525.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 British Geological Survey: Sheet E029, Keswick (Solid) - Geology of Britain viewer
- ↑ "Mine Explorer Society". http://www.mineexplorer.org.uk/greenside.htm. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
- ↑ David Gough (1965). "Structural Analysis of Ore Shoots at Greeenside Lead Mine, Cumberland, England". Economic Geology 60: 1463. doi:10.2113/gsecongeo.60.7.1459. http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Greenside-Lead-Mine/Economic-Geology-1965_v60-n07_p1459-p1477.pdf. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Diana Whaley (2006). A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society. ISBN 0-904889-72-6.