Сочинение: The National Parks of Great Britan
Geographically, the classical Yorkshire Dales
spread to the north from the market and spa towns of Settle, Deepdale near Dent,
Skipton, Ilkley and Harrogate in North Yorkshire, with most of the larger
southern dales (e. g. Ribblesdale, Malhamdale and Airedale, Wharfedale and
Nidderdale) running roughly parallel from north to south. The more northerly
dales (e. g. Wensleydale, Swaledale and Teesdale) running generally from west
to east. There are also many other smaller or lesser known dales (e. g. Arkengarthdale,
Barbondale, Bishopdale, Clapdale, Coverdale, Dentdale and Deepdale, Garsdale,
Kingsdale, Littondale, Langstrothdale, Raydale, Waldendale and the Washburn
Valley) whose tributary streams and rivers feed into the larger valleys. [1]
The characteristic scenery of the “Dales” is
green upland pastures separated by dry-stone walls and grazed by sheep and cattle.
The dales themselves are ‘U’ and ‘V’ shaped valleys, which were enlarged and
shaped by glaciers, mainly in the most recent, Devensian ice age. The
underlying rock is principally Carboniferous limestone (which results in a
number of areas of limestone pavement) in places interspersed with shale and sandstone
and topped with millstone grit. However, to the north of the Dent fault, the
hills are principally older Silurian and Ordovician rocks, which make up the Howgill
Fells.
Many of the upland areas consist of heather moorland,
used for grouse shooting in the months following 12 August each year (the ‘Glorious
Twelfth’).
Gaping Gill
Because of the limestone that runs throughout
the “Dales” there are extensive cave systems present across the area making it
one of the major areas for caving in the UK. Many of these are open to the
public for tours and for caving.
The Lake District, also known as The
Lakes or Lakeland, is a rural area in North West England. A popular
holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes and its mountains (or fells),
and its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William
Wordsworth and the Lake Poets.
The central and most-visited part of the area
is contained in the Lake District National Park, one of fourteen National Parks
in the United Kingdom. It lies entirely within Cumbria, and is one of England's few mountainous regions. All the land in England higher than three thousand feet
above sea level lies within the National Park, including Scafell Pike, the
highest mountain in England
The Lake District is approximately 34 miles (55
km) across. Its features are a result of periods of glaciation, the most recent
of which ended some 15,000 years ago. These include the ice-carved wide U-shaped
valleys, many of which are now filled with the lakes that give the park its
name. The upper regions contain a number of glacial cirques, which are
typically filled with tarns. The higher fells are rocky, with lower fells being
open moorland, notable for its wide bracken and heather coverage. Below the tree
line, native oak woodlands sit alongside nineteenth century pine plantations. Much
of the land is often boggy, due to the high rainfall. The Lake District is one
of the most highly populated national parks. Its total area is near 885 square
miles (2,292 km2), and the Lake District was designated as a
National Park in 1951.
In Neolithic times, the Lake District was a
major source of stone axes, examples of which have been found all over Britain. The primary site, on the slopes of the Langdale Pikes, is sometimes described as a
"stone axe factory" of the Langdale axe industry. Some of the
earliest stone circles in Britain are connected with this industry.
Since Roman times, farming, in particular of sheep,
was the major industry in the region. The breed most closely associated with
the area is the tough Herdwick, with Rough Fell and Swaledale sheep also common.
Sheep farming remains important both for the economy of the region and for
preserving the landscape which visitors want to see. Features such as dry stone
walls, for example, are there as a result of sheep farming. Some land is also
used for silage and dairy farming. There are extensive plantations of non-native
pine trees.
The area was badly affected by the foot-and-mouth
outbreak across the United Kingdom in 2001. Thousands of sheep, grazing on the
fellsides across the District, were destroyed. In replacing the sheep, one
problem to overcome was that many of the lost sheep were heafed, that
is, they knew their part of the unfenced fell and did not stray, with this
knowledge being passed between generations. With all the sheep lost at once,
this knowledge has to be re-learnt and some of the fells have had discreet
electric fences strung across them for a period of five years, to allow the
sheep to "re-heaf".
Mining, particularly of copper, lead (often associated
with quantities of silver), baryte, graphite and slate, was historically a
major Lakeland industry, mainly from the 16th century to the 19th century. Coppiced
woodland was used extensively to provide charcoal for smelting. Some mining
still takes place today-for example slate mining continues at the Honister
Mines, at the top of Honister Pass. Abandoned mine-workings can be found on
fell-sides throughout the district. The locally-mined graphite led to the
development of the pencil industry, especially around Keswick.
In the middle of the 19th century, half the
world textile industry's bobbin supply came from the Lake District area. Over
the past century, however, tourism has grown rapidly to become the area's
primary source of income.
Early visitors to the Lake District, who
travelled for the education and pleasure of the journey, include Celia Fiennes
who in 1698 undertook a journey the length of England, including riding through
Kendal and over Kirkstone Pass into Patterdale. Her experiences and impressions
were published in her book Great Journey to Newcastle and Cornwall:
As I walked down at this place I was walled on
both sides by those inaccessible high rocky barren hills which hang over one’s
head in some places and appear very terrible; and from them springs many little
currents of water from the sides and clefts which trickle down to some lower
part where it runs swiftly over the stones and shelves in the way, which makes
a pleasant rush and murmuring noise and like a snowball is increased by each
spring trickling down on either side of those hills, and so descends into the
bottoms which are a Moorish ground in which in many places the waters stand,
and so form some of those Lakes as it did here.
In 1724, Daniel Defoe published the first
volume of A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain. He commented
on Westmorland that it was:
the wildest, most barren and frightful of any
that I have passed over in England, or even Wales itself; the west side, which
borders on Cumberland, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable
mountains which, in the language of the country, are called fells.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the area
was becoming more popular with travellers. This was partly a result of wars in Continental
Europe, restricting the possibility of travel there. In 1778 Father Thomas West
produced A Guide to the Lakes, which began the era of modern tourism.
West listed "stations"-viewpoints
where tourists could enjoy the best views of the landscape, being encouraged to
appreciated the formal qualities of the landscape and to apply aesthetic values.
At some of these stations, buildings were erected to help this process. The
remains of Claife Station (on the western shore of Windermere below Claife
Heights) can be visited today.
William Wordsworth published his Guide to
the Lakes in 1810, and by 1835 it had reached its fifth edition, now called
A Guide through the District of the Lakes in the North of England. This
book was particularly influential in popularising the region. Wordsworth's
favourite valley was Dunnerdale or the Duddon Valley nestling in the south-west
of the Lake District.
The railways led to another expansion in
tourism. The Kendal and Windermere Railway was the first to penetrate the Lake District, reaching Kendal in 1846 and Windermere in 1847. The line to Coniston opened
in 1848 (although until 1857 this was only linked to the national network with
ferries between Fleetwood and Barrow-in-Furness); the line from Penrith through
Keswick to Cockermouth in 1865; and the line to Lakeside at the foot of Windermere
in 1869. The railways, built with traditional industry in mind, brought with
them a huge increase in the number of visitors, thus contributing to the growth
of the tourism industry. Railway services were supplemented by steamer boats on
the major lakes of Ullswater, Windermere, Coniston Water, and Derwent Water.
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