Little Langdale

Little Langdale, is a small hamlet which consists of a few stone houses, a post office and a village pub, is separated from Great Langdale by Lingmoor Fell in the lakes. It can be reached by either a narrow, winding road that passes Blea Tarn, or, from the Eskdale direction by way of Hardknott Pass and Wrynose Pass, this road continues and joins the Ambleside to Coniston road near Skelwith Bridge and the Ambleside to Great Langdale road at Elterwater.

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Village: Little Langdale

OS grid ref: NY 315035

Coordinates: 54° 25′ 20″ N, 3° 03′ 26″ W

Nearest lake/tarn: Elterwater

Nearest mountain/fell: Langdale Pikes

The village pub, which is a traditional slate inn built in 1872, is called Three Shires Inn. It was so called because it is approximately two miles away from where the old boundaries of the counties of Cumberland, Lancashire and Westmorland once met.

The National Trust owns and maintains many of the scattered farms in the Langdale Valley. The Trust also owns a few properties that are available for accommodation. Also, at the foot of the Wrynose Pass and within the grounds of the Fell Foot Farm is the Ting Mound or Thing Moot. This area was apparently used by the Vikings as an open air meeting place for those responsible for the administration and organisation of the countryside. This site was chosen as it was accessible from the south and east via Ambleside and from the west by way of Hardknott Pass.

Little Langdale, which is steeped in history, is a beautiful interesting valley. Even William Wordsworth appreciated the beauty and remoteness of this valley. In his poem The Excursion: Book Second: The Solitary, he wrote:

… Beneath our feet, a little lowly vale, a lowly vale, and yet uplifted high among the mountains; even as if the spot had been from the eldest time by wish of theirs so placed, to be shut out from all the World ! …

Little Langdale

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