Tuesday 10th November 2026
Ordnance Survey seem reluctant to name many tarns and lakes that look large enough to merit a name and which I guess will have one given by locals. This reminded me of reading a long time ago Brian Friel's play, "Translations." The play is centred around British Royal Engineers in 1833 descending in Northern Ireland to re-write the Irish place names on the map in pronounceable English, for example, turning Poll na gCaorach into Poolkerry, and you can imagine the reactions of the locals to that intrusion - it is a good read and I reccommend. I seem to remember they did consult locals about place names generally, as do Ordnance Survey I think.
All this arose from my trawling the map for previously unwalked territory, and hopefully including some specific objective. I lighted on a remote looking tarn which you will see at the diversion on the map below at the northern edge of my walk. Not that it matters much to me, but it is on Access Land and there is a track terminating at the the tarn, I wonder why?
I was able to park just north of The Brown Horse Inn at a rudimentary lay-by and off I went. A minor road and a connecting footpath cut out potential walking on the main road, but finding the hidden stile to access the continuing path through Howe Farm was a minor challenge to my navigation skills.
After that, easy to follow tracks and roads made for good country walking in this quiet unspoiled edge of the Lake District. Hidden dales and small hills were a delight in the autumn sunshine dotted here and there with sixteenth century farmhouses cleverly nestled amongst green sheep pastures and now glowing russet patches of autumn bracken, and with limestone outcrops thrown in here and there.
The track to my objective tarn was promising for the first fifty yards, but it shrank to a normal footpath through bracken and gorse, but still pleasant to walk. The track as indicated on the map ended at a point well above the tarn with a doubtful looking continuation descending. I anticipated that may result in one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" ventures. I was content to enjoy the view from on high of this pristine remote little gem with a backdrop of the more often visited distant Lakeland fells,and not wanting to descend and spoil my tarn's deserved peace, and somehow thankful that it doesn't have a name.
Towards the end of the walk on a steep climb up a minor road before descending back down to the Brown Horse I heard a chainsaw and then came across its operator clearing a fallen tree from the road. He was local and told me the tree had fallen in one of our now regular storms and it had prevented the school bus from taking his kids to school.
He was the only person I met on the walk.
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| A minor tarn, not my intended objective |
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| My Tarn ( for want of a name) |
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| Strange construction in middle of field with nothing else around. Zoom shot, it was perhaps three hundred yards away and not accessible from my track - OS Grid, approx. SD 419 945. Any Ideas? |
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| Stonehills Tarn. Difficult to photogrph, on private land |
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| Brown Horse Inn, Winster. My car just up the road |
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| Anti clockwise from Winster |
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