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WASDALE, the vale of Wast-water, in Cumberland; extending 7½ miles southwestward, from the foot of Styhead pass, to a point 5 miles NE of Ravenglass. It forms a bare, gloomy, profound mountain-trough, engirt by Yewbarrow, Kirk Fell, Great Gable, Lingmell, and the Screes; and, as seen from Scaw Fell, is called by Wordsworth "a den;" yet, though the wildest of all the Cumberland lake-basins, it is the grandest. Wast-water occupies much of its bottom; is 3 miles long, and almost everywhere about ½ a mile broad; has a surface-elevation of 160 feet above sea-level; is so deep as to be popularly pronounced unfathomable; and contains plenty of trout, and a few char.
(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))
Linked entities: | |
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Feature Description: | "the vale of Wast-water" (ADL Feature Type: "valleys") |
Administrative units: | Cumberland AncC |
Place: | Wasdale |
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