Ennerdale

Ennerdale is the only major Lake District valley with no public road along it, and Pillar, Great Gable and Kirk Fell tower over Ennerdale Water. The Forestry Commission bought the valley in the 1920s and blanketed it in conifers; today the Wild Ennerdale Partnership, one of the UK's largest wilding partnerships, is letting the landscape evolve naturally across what was declared Cumbria's largest National Nature Reserve in 2022. The River Liza is left to choose its own course and native trees are colonising the old plantation. The valley inspired Wordsworth's poem The Brothers, and the Trust dates true rock climbing to the shepherd John Atkinson's ascent of Pillar Rock in 1824. In winter, when the bracken dies back, the longhouses of the Smithy Beck settlement, more than 600 years old, show most clearly. Dogs are welcome throughout, on a short lead around livestock. Neither lakeside car park belongs to the Trust: Bleach Green has access paths for visitors with limited mobility, Bowness Knott is pay and display, with no general vehicle access beyond it.