Mardale

{{Short description|English glacial valley in the Lake District}} {{for|the [[Romania]]n village|Vulpeni}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{coord|54.510|-2.810|display=title|region:GB_scale:5000}}

'''Mardale''' {{IPAc-en|m|ɑr|d|eɪ|l}} is a [[glacial valley]] in the [[Lake District]], in northern [[England]]. The valley used to have a hamlet at its head, called Mardale Green, but this village was submerged in the late 1930s when the water level of the valley's lake, Haweswater, was raised to form [[Haweswater Reservoir]] by [[Manchester City Council|Manchester Corporation]].<ref name="bbcnov03">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/features/photos/2003/mardale/mardale.shtml The "lost village" of Mardale], BBC, November 2003. Retrieved 2013-01-01.</ref><ref name="bbc11nov03">[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/3259833.stm Emergency water measures planned], BBC news website, 2003-11-11. Retrieved 2013-01-01.</ref>

==Demolition== [[Image:Mardale 18.jpg|thumb|Mardale]] Most of the village's buildings were blown up by the [[Royal Engineers]], who used them for demolition practice. The exception was the small church, which could accommodate only 75 people, and had an all-ticket congregation for its last service. It was then dismantled in April 1937, stone by stone, and the stones and windows were re-used to build the water take-off tower which is situated along the Western shore of the reservoir.<ref name="bbc15jul10">[https://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cumbria/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8780000/8780070.stm The "lost village" of Mardale], BBC news website. 2010-07-15. Retrieved 2013-01-01.</ref> Some 97 sets of remains were disinterred from the churchyard and transferred to [[Shap]].<ref name="bbc15jul10" /> The ruins of the [[abandoned village]] occasionally reappear when the water level in the reservoir is low.<ref name="bbcnov03" /><ref name="bbc11nov03" /><ref name="bbc15jul10" />

[[Alfred Wainwright]] protested bitterly about the loss of Mardale in his series of pictorial guides to the [[Lake District|Lakeland]] fells, having first visited it in 1930,{{fact|date=July 2018}} and still wrote of the “rape of Mardale” in his very last book.<ref>A Wainwright, ''Wainwright in the Valleys of Lakeland'' (London 1996) pg. 25</ref> Others, however, {{Who|date=May 2022}} praised the creation of a new and impressive mass of water, especially as viewed from the fells.<ref>B Conduit, ''Lake District Walks'' (Norwich 1991) p. 64</ref>

==Dam and fell access== [[Image:Mardale 04.jpg|thumb|Mardale]] Despite his protests, Wainwright was impressed by the dimensions of the Mardale dam – {{Convert|90|ft}} in height; {{Convert|1550|ft|abbr=on}} in length – which he noted as the earliest hollow [[buttress dam]] in the world.<ref>A Wainwright, ''Wainwright in the Valleys of Lakeland'' (London 1996) p. 29</ref>

In response to the submerging of the village, Manchester Corporation provided a new access road that runs for {{Convert|4|mi|4=0|spell=in}} along the south-eastern side of the reservoir to a car park at Gatescarth. From here ascents of the peaks surrounding the head of the valley, such as [[Harter Fell (Mardale)|Harter Fell]], [[High Street (Lake District)|High Street]] and [[Kidsty Pike]] may be made.<ref>A Wainwright, ''Wainwright in the Valleys of Lakeland'' (London 1996) p. 27</ref> {{clear left}}

==Historical and literary associations== *A refugee from [[John, King of England|King John]], Sir Hugh Hulme, settled in the valley in the early 13th C., and was popularly known as the King of Mardale.<ref>[http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/lgaz/lk13356.htm Old Cumbria Gazette]</ref> *[[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] gives an emotional response to the remote grandeur of ''Mardale Head'' in her poetical illustration of that name, to an engraving of a painting by [[Thomas Allom]] in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835.<ref> {{cite book|last =Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Bzk_AAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA64|section=picture and poetical illustration|page=52|year=1834|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.}}</ref> {{wikisource|Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835/Mardale Head|Mardale Head by Thomas Allom, with a poetical illustration by L. E. L.}}

*Mardale featured as “Marrisdale” in [[Mrs Humphry Ward]]’s Victorian novel ''[[Robert Elsmere]]''; and was also described by her contemporary as a novelist, [[Eliza Lynn Linton]]: “seen in the calm of evening, with every mountain form repeated with tenfold force of line and colour in the black lake...it is something well worth travelling far to see”.<ref>G Lindop, ''A Literary Guide to the Lake District'' (London 1993) p. 33</ref> *The flooding of Mardale is the subject of [[Sarah Hall (writer)|Sarah Hall]]'s 2002 historical novel ''Haweswater'' (Faber, {{ISBN|978-0571209309}}). Hall's novel won the [[Commonwealth_Foundation_prizes#Commonwealth_Writers'_Prize|Commonwealth Writers First Book Award]].

==See also== {{commons category}} *[[Capel Celyn]] (village 'drowned' to create a reservoir) *[[Derwent, Derbyshire]] *[[Rough Crag (Riggindale)|Riggindale]] *[[Chew Valley Lake]] (where the village of Moreton lies underwater) *[[West End, Yorkshire]] (village 'drowned' to create a reservoir)

==References== {{Reflist|2|}}

==External links== *[http://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/township/shap Cumbria County History Trust: Shap] (nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)

[[Category:Valleys of Cumbria]] [[Category:Former populated places in Cumbria]] [[Category:Forcibly depopulated communities in the United Kingdom]] [[Category:Westmorland and Furness]] [[Category:Communities depopulated for reservoir creation]]