{{Short description|Waterfall in Cumbria, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Coord|54.5432|-3.3135|display=title}} [[Image:Waterfall_Scale_Force.jpg|thumb|200px|Scale Force]] '''Scale Force''' is considered the highest [[waterfall]] in the [[English Lake District]]. Opinions vary about how its precise height is calculated, but the total height is normally stated as 170 feet (51.8m).<ref name=Trans/> It lies on the stream Scale Beck.
The waterfall – or [[force]] (a Norse term for waterfall) – is hidden in a deep gorge on the northern flank of [[Red Pike (Buttermere)|Red Pike]]. It lies south of [[Crummock Water]] and is near the village of [[Buttermere, Cumbria (village)|Buttermere]].<ref name=Saturday/>
[[William Wordsworth]] described Scale Force as "a fine chasm, with a lofty, though but slender, fall of water",<ref name=Wordsworth/> while [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] wrote, "Scale Force, the white downfall of which glimmered through the trees, that hang before it like the bushy hair over a madman's eyes."<ref name=Coleridge/> In her poetical illustration {{ws|[[s:Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837/Scale Force, Cumberland|Scale Force, Cumberland]]}}, to a painting by [[Thomas Allom]], [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] writes "It sweeps, as sweeps an army Adown the mountain side, With the voice of many claps of thunder, like the battle’s sounding tide".<ref> {{cite book|last =Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA180|section=poetical illustration|page=52|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.}}{{cite book|last =Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA182|section=picture|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.}}</ref>
==See also== * [[List of waterfalls]] * [[List of waterfalls in England]]
== References == {{Reflist|refs= <ref name=Trans>{{cite book|last1=Vukanovic|first1=Marija Brala|last2=Krstanovic|first2=Irena Vodopija|title=The Global and Local Dimensions of English: Exploring Issues of Language and Culture|date=2011|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-3-643-90073-9}}</ref> <ref name=Saturday>{{cite journal|title=Cascades in England|journal=The Saturday Magazine|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510028065196;view=1up;seq=268|date=December 1832|issue=32|page=256}}</ref> <ref name=Wordsworth>{{cite book|editor1-last=Owen|editor1-first=W. J. B.|editor2-last=Smyser|editor2-first=Jane Worthington|title=The prose works of William Wordsworth: Volume 2|date=1974|publisher=Clarendon Press|page=164}}</ref> <ref name=Coleridge>{{cite book|last1=Berkoben|first1=L. D.|title=Coleridge's decline as a poet|url=https://archive.org/details/coleridgesdeclin0000berk|url-access=registration|date=1975|publisher=Mouton & Co.|isbn=90-279-3431-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/coleridgesdeclin0000berk/page/54 54]}}</ref> }}
[[Category:Tourist attractions in Cumbria]] [[Category:Waterfalls of Cumbria]] [[Category:Force (waterfall)]] [[Category:Cumberland]] [[Category:Loweswater (village)]]