Guide to walking in south Lakeland - English Lake District, UK

• Location
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• Sample Route
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Walk 14: Holme Fell, Hodge Close and the Cathedral

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Distance: 5 miles / 8km
Grade: Easy
Terrain: Low fell and woodland walk
Summit: Holme Fell – 1010ft (308m)
Summary: A short walk which has much of the best character of South Lakeland. There are beautiful natural woodlands; rough fells with a craggy summit and fine views over lakes and hills; a placid tarn; a glimpse of old industry with exciting situations for anyone inspired by rock scenery – and all so easily gained! Warning: take care in the quarries, rockfalls can occur.
How to get there and parking: Start at the car park at Tilberthwaite, approached by a side road from the A593 1½ miles north of Coniston.

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The walk: Standing on Gill Bridge and looking downstream a footpath can be seen on the left stony bank. In the middle distance is the delightful woodland of Low Coppice and beyond, forming the horizon, stretch the many summits of tiny Holme Fell. Go through the gap on to the floodbanks and make your way to a kissing gate into the wood. Low Coppice is a beautiful birch wood. The path rises gently amid silver trunks and down to join a major path coming across the fields from High Tilberthwaite. Turn R passing through a cutting where grooves in the stone indicate its former importance as a wagonway. At the surfaced road turn L. In this little hidden vale you can sense the tranquility as you approach Holme Ground. On the right, opposite the cottage, a gate swings open across slabs bridging a small stream. There is no footpath sign. Go through the gate on the wide path up the wallside until, after passing a concrete water tank, turn sharp L to pass above the tank. Turning from the intimacy of the pathside the elevation now reveals a pastel view of Tilberthwaite, mine and quarry scars providing shades of blue to complement the greens of Betsy Crag, Blake Rigg and Wetherlam. Go through the next gate, and 20 yards on take a path on the right threading its way uphill between the rowans. As the path levels off Holme Fell and Ivy Crag with its prominent cairn appear suddenly on the horizon.

Spend a minute looking ahead at the route and identifying its features from the map. The path winds up the fellside between the two summits and descends further left in a line below Ivy Crag to the Uskdale Gap. Continue past a cairn, turn L, then pass another cairn. Keep on up this grassy cairned path, crossing a small traversing trod then tackle the final rise to the top. On the summit plateau there is a small juvenile bog to avoid before mounting to the cairn of Ivy Crag on the left….