Kentmere is a valley, village and civil parish in the Lake District National Park, a few miles from Kendal in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Historically in Westmorland, at the 2011 census Kentmere had a population of 159. The current lord of the manor is American philanthropist Terry A. Perkins.
Geography The narrow valley spans about in length and begins with a bowl of hills known as the Kentmere Round; a horseshoe of high fells which surrounds Kentmere Reservoir. The River Kent, which gives Kendal its name, begins from Hall Cove, a corrie at the head of the valley, before flowing through the reservoir. Access to this part of the valley is available via the Roman High Street, over Nan Bield Pass, from Troutbeck over Garburn Pass (Bridleway only. No motor vehicles), or along an old bridleway up from the village. The valley is sandwiched between Troutbeck on the west side and Longsleddale on the east. It can be reached by road only by travelling through the village of Staveley, which sits at its mouth where the river meets the Gowan Beck coming in from Ings. A walk described by Wainwright in his Far Eastern Fells series as the Kentmere Round involves an all-inclusive round trip of . In the past there were drove roads up over the horseshoe in the north to the village of Mardale which is now under the water of the Haweswater Reservoir. In the past it was a tradition of the valley's inhabitants to travel from Kentmere to Mardale village church as part of the Easter Sunday celebrations.
The River Kent begins above the reservoir in the heights of Bleathwaite Crag. It collects beneath Kentmere Common in the reservoir which was built in 1848 to control the flow of water to the lower pastures. Lingmell Gill also feeds into the reservoir. Beside the reservoir sits a disused quarry and a cottage formerly used for maintenance of the river. The river opens out into a transitory lake called Kentmere Tarn just south of the confluence with Hall Gill. The lake has at times in the past completely disappeared into marshland and in 1840 it was purposely drained to provide reclaimed farm land, but in the past 100 years the "mere" has reappeared again. It is currently 1 mile in length. An archaeological excavation there uncovered an 'extended' log boat dated to c. 1300 AD (D.M. Wilson, A Medieval Boat from Kentmere, Westmorland, in Medieval Archaeology (1966) 10. 81–88). Other tributaries within the valley include Ullstone Gill, Nunnery Beck, Nuttera Beck, Park Beck and Hall Beck. A waterfall known as Force Jump is situated just north of the village, and there are two bridges at the Staveley end of the valley. The first is called Barley Bridge and includes a dramatic weir. The second straddles the Kent further up the valley and is known as Scrogg's Bridge.
A little further down the valley is the village of Kentmere, which includes Kentmere Hall and the church of St Cuthbert's. The parish of Kentmere is divided into four quarters: Kentmere Common Green Quarter Hallow Bank Crag Quarter
Over Staveley and Hugill are also situated within the Kent valley, along with the small settlements of Elfhowe and Browfoot.
Near Kentmere Hall stands the "Brock Stone" or Badger Rock, a large free-standing rhyolite boulder. It is one of many challenges popular with climbers in the area. It is said that: "Kentmere valley has the greatest number of recorded [climbing] problems in the Lake District (over 125)"– Kentmere Bouldering by Greg Chapman
The main rocks and minerals to be found in the valley are green slate and granite. There has been some record of opal being found too– Mindat.org lists that opal has been found on the shores of Kentmere Tarn, at Lat/Long. though it has never been mined. Much of the local stone has been used since pre-history as the raw material for field boundaries using a local technique known as dry stone walling. Just below the reservoir is a Geological Conservation Review site known as Jumb Quarry.Application for GCR status for Jumb Quarry (PDF) The site is significant due to its volcanic rock which displays "bird's-eye tuffs", which contain lapilli (fragments of lava that erupted from a volcanic centre and probably fell into standing bodies of water). The lapilli are believed to have been spherical originally, but were squashed into elliptical shapes as a result of intense pressure during the formation of the Caledonian Mountains.
Early human history
The valley has evidence of habitation going back to roughly 4000 BC, when the valley and surrounding hillsides were almost entirely covered with forest. A major archaeological research project conducted in the valley by a local archaeology group between 1983 and 1999 surveyed and recorded hundreds of archaeological features, as well as excavating two sites – a (radiocarbon dated) pre-Viking and Viking Age upland settlement at Bryant's Gill, south of Rainsborrow Crag (on private land, not publicly accessible), and part of a medieval platform site and farmstead near Kentmere Hall(Dickinson, S., Bryant's Gill, Kentmere: Another 'Viking-Period' Ribblehead?, in J.R.Baldwin and I.D.Whyte (eds.) The Scandinavians in Cumbria, The Scottish Society for Northern Studies (1985), 83–88.) The results of this survey and excavation project are to be made publicly available via a new Lake District and Cumbrian archaeology website in 2012.
The valley's rich archaeological heritage also includes the remains of at least five large prehistoric compound or curvilinear sites incorporating the remains of round houses, stockyards and more. One of these sites is on a public footpath at Tongue House in the northern part of the valley.
Significant sites
Kentmere Hall is famous for its tower house; a fortification built for status in the 13th – early 14th centuries – ostensibly to guard against raiding parties from Scotland. Similar towers occur elsewhere in Cumbria and other northern English and southern Scottish counties. Kentmere Hall's tower has walls, tunnel-vaulted ceilings, a crenellated roof with turrets and a spiral staircase; all built out of local stone. The farmstead to the east of it shows signs of many building phases and changes, in common with many other significant Lake District valley bottom medieval and post-medieval buildings such as Dalegarth Hall in Eskdale.
The manor, having been handed down to the eldest son, the rest of the valley was divided between the younger sons of the Gilpins for generations. What remains of the original estate is now a farm in possession of a private owner. Other important parts of the manor include Green Quarter on the eastern slopes of the valley where there is a bed and breakfast house, called Maggs Howe, that once was home to a branch of the Gilpin family.
St Cuthbert's Church, Kentmere was built to the east of Kentmere Hall. As is often the case with medieval churches, there is an ancient yew tree situated nearby which has been estimated to date back to the time of William I; indicating that worship had been taking place there at an early stage in the village's history. Written records of the chapel do not begin until 1692 making earlier history difficult to establish. A graveyard for the church was dedicated in 1701, and the Lord of the Manor paid the curate "a rate of 2s. levied for every 13s. 4d. paid to the lord of the manor". In 1757 this was supplemented with money paid out of Queen Anne's Bounty roughly £400–800. The chapel was remodelled in the 19th century and again in the 1950s. The roof was of 16th century date, but in 2016 was replaced.
Industry The valley used to be known for its bobbin mills and for Waterfoot factory which dredged the bottom of the Kentmere Tarn in the 1950s searching for diatomite. A water mill was established by the first Lord of the Manor in 1272. The records state that he had "Liberty granted to erect a mill on the banks of the River Kent at Ulthwaite, upstream of Croft Head" they also stated that the mill was used to cut the sleepers for the Kendal and Windermere Railway in 1860. The mill was restored in the 1970s and is now a pottery studio producing handmade ceramics. Also, at the Staveley end of the valley, is a photographic paper manufactory known as Kentmere Ltd. A fishery is situated beside the reservoir and every year trout and salmon are released into the River Kent for the benefit of anglers because the river's native population has been diminished.
The area has had a history of mining. This appears to have been predominantly for the green slate available in the valley.
Mining Official records of mining in the area go back at least as far as 1898. Before that it is likely, due to the particularly craggy nature of the valley, that the local dry stone walls and stone for housing were taken from the slopes around the valley, even as far back as the Bronze Age. There are two main open cast mines in the valley. The first is Jumb Quarry, situated within a few hundred yards of the early settlement at Tongue House, suggesting that the two may have been coexisting in some form or other. However the general proliferation of rock in this part of Kentmere means the early inhabitants may easily have taken their building material from almost anywhere in the valley, so it is by no means certain.
The second is situated at Steelrigg near Staveley. Both produced green slate.
There were also at least six underground mines in the valley. At the height of production in 1914 Steelrigg employed five men below ground and nine above. The quarry fell out of use in 1923 and 1925 and employed only four men with no active mining listed between 1921 and 1926. Mining was resumed in 1927 and continued until at least 1938.– Steelrigg mining records Durham Mining Museum
Jumb quarry was in continuous use throughout the same period, employing 10 men below ground and five above at its height in 1934.– Jumb mining records Durham Mining Museum
The two quarries changed hands on a number of occasions, with three companies listed in the pre-war period; James Stevenson & Co., Kendal, Tilberthwaite Green Slate Co Ltd., Kendal and Buttermere Green Slate Quarries Ltd., Station Buildings, Keswick. Throughout this time the agent for the quarries was local man J.J. Thomas.
By 1945 a company recorded as being the Kentmere Green Slate Co. Ltd. having its offices in the St. George's Buildings, Blackhall, Kendal owned both sites.
Literary mentions "Kentmere... This place hath its name from the River Kent, which springs there, and from a mere or lake therein called Kentmere; which river gives name not only to this particular district, but to all the south-west part of this county, called Kendale. It springs about 3 miles (5 km) north from the chapel, and from thence runs southward through Kentmere, Staveley, Strickland, the township of Kendal, by Natland, Helsington, Levins and from thence into the sea. It receives in its course two small rivers, Sprit and Mint. The former springs in Long Sleddale, and runs in at Burneshead. The other springs in Fawcet Forest, and its course meets with Grayrigg Water which springs above the hall, and falls into Kent about a mile above Kendal. Kentmere is bounded on the east by the chapelry of Long Sleddale, on the south by the chapelries of Staveley and Ings, on the west by the top of Garburne Fell, and on the north by Patterdale in the parish of Barton and Mardale in the parish of Shap."
Joseph Nicolson and Richard Burn: The history and antiquities of the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland. 1777. Transcribed by Anne Nichols
Kentmere families