Moss Force
| Moss Force | |
| Cumberland | |
|---|---|
 Moss Force, from Knott Rigg | |
| River: | Moss Beck |
| Fall: | 330 feet |
| NY193174 | |
| Co-ordinates: | 54°32’45"N, 3°14’56"W |
Moss Force is a waterfall coursing 330 feet down in Cumberland, on the Moss Beck.
The waterfall is within the Lake District National Park, and may be found six miles south-west of the town of Keswick at Newlands Hause, the pass between the Newlands Valley and the Buttermere Valley.
Its beauty was celebrated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the waterfall is now a highlight on the Wainwright Memorial Walk, a route created by the late, great Alfred Wainwright and now maintained in his memory.
Description
Over the Moss Force, the Moss Beck falls approximately 330 feet, as the beck flows off Robinson, the fell which is its source. The Beck rises on Robinson at a height of 1772 feet, flowing across a boggy area known as Buttermere Moss before plunging down from a height of 1,380 feet in three distinct sections to form Moss Force.
The top section, which is also the highest cascade, is split by an outcrop of rock and falls into a small pool surrounded by a few rowan trees, then continues downwards through two smaller cascades. The middle cascade falls into a larger pool which has scattered juniper around it.
The bottom cascade is smallest of the three, after which the Beck enters a small wooded gorge containing further smaller falls. The Beck then levels out in the bottom of the Newlands Valley as it is joined by High Hole Beck and becomes Keskadale Beck.[1][2]
Moss Force is a popular stop with visitors and tourists. Wainwright described it as:
"...one of the few paths in Lakeland owing their existence very largely to motorists exercising their legs from cars left at the Hause, where wide verges provide plenty of space for parking".[3]
There are two paths from the Hause to the foot of both the upper and middle cascades, although a little scrambling over rock is required to reach the foot of the upper falls. Moss Force is a grade III Winter Ice Climb, a 110-metre climb in total, and is divided into four sections, of 15, 25, 50 and 20 metres. The upper falls are the longest and the most difficult of the sections and the protruding outcrop can be passed on either side. The final 20 metre section is a less steep part of the Force at its very highest point,[4] which leads on to Buttermere Moss.[3]
The falls are along the way of the "Wainwright Memorial Walk," a 102-mile walk devised by famed fellwalker and writer Alfred Wainwright in his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells and are included in numerous British walking tours and guides.[5][6]
In literature
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge visited Moss Force in 1802; he waited until the Force was in spate after heavy rain and explored the falls in September of that year. Coleridge recorded the visit in a private letter to Sara Hutchinson, saying of the upper cascade:
{{quote|It is so near a perpendicular that it would have appeared to fall--but it is indeed so fearfully savage, & black, & jagged, that it tears the flood to pieces--and one great black Outjutment divides the water, & overbrows & keeps uncovered a long slip of jagged black Rock beneath, which gives a marked character to the whole force. What a sight it is to look down on such a Cataract!--the wheels, that circumvolve in it--the leaping up & plunging forward of that infinity of Pearls & Glass Bulbs--the continual change of the Matter, the perpetual Sameness of the Form-it is an awful Image & Shadow of God & the World.[7]
Thomas West, in his Guide to the Lakes (1778), described the Force as "a mountain of purple coloured rock presenting a thousand chasms".[8]
Outside links
- Coleridge at Moss Force - Ronald Turnbull
References
- ↑ 'English Lakes'; Moss Force
- ↑ Fellows, Griffith J.: 'Waterfalls of England: a practical guide for visitors and walkers' (Sigma Leisure, 2003), page 60. ISBN 978-1-85058-767-5
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wainwright, Alfred: A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Book Six — The North Western Fells (1964)
- ↑ "Newlands Hause Waterfall," in Davison, Brian; Stephen Reid; Bob Bennett (2006). Lake District winter climbs: snow, ice and mixed climbs in the English Lake District. Cicerone Press. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-85284-484-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=mn6YlrugR_UC&pg=RA1-PA239.
- ↑ Marshall, Stuart (2000). Walking the Wainwrights. Sigma Leisure. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-85058-753-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=LKc5qjhims8C&pg=PA76.
- ↑ Richards, Mark (2008). Great mountain days in the Lake District. Cicerone Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-85284-516-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=qupN2cTw0EsC&pg=PA174.
- ↑ Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: 'Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1801-1806: "To Sara Hutchinson, 25 August 1802" (Earl Leslie Griggs, ed.; Oxford University Press, 2002); pages 852–53. ISBN 978-0-19-818743-1
- ↑ Quoted in Grant, Susan (2006). The Story of the Newlands Valley. Carlisle: Bookcase. p. 93. ISBN 1-904147-17-8.