Qualla: Crummock Water

Crummock Water: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antiquary, CC BY 4.0. Alfred Wainwright, who walked these fells more meticulously than anyone before or since, wrote that 'no pairing of hill and lake in Lakeland have a closer partnership' than Crummock Water and the hill of Mellbreak that runs the full length of its western shore. He was right. From the south-eastern end, Mellbreak rises straight out of the water as if pushed up by the lake itself, and from any other angle the two are inseparable. The name does not strain for grandeur. 'Crummock' comes from Brythonic Celtic crumbaco - simply, 'the crooked one'. The lake bends gently, and a thousand years ago someone described that bend, and the description stuck.

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Image: Antiquary | CC BY 4.0

Crummock Water: A Lake Held by Three Owners

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tango22, CC BY-SA 3.0. Crummock Water measures two and a half miles long, six-tenths of a mile wide, and 140 feet deep, with an area of two and a half square kilometres. It is fed by Buttermere Dubs - the short stream from Buttermere immediately to its south - and drains north as the River Cocker, the ...

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Image: Tango22 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Crummock Water: Scale Force

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Snapshots Of The Past, CC BY-SA 2.0. Tucked into the south-western slopes above Crummock Water is Scale Force, the highest waterfall in the Lake District. It drops 170 feet through a narrow gorge before its water makes its way into the lake. Getting there requires a walk - the falls are not visible from the road, an...

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Image: Snapshots Of The Past | CC BY-SA 2.0

Crummock Water: Drinking Water for the Coast

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Woodward-Nutt, CC BY-SA 2.0. For most of the 20th century, Crummock Water did a quiet, vital job. Its water was treated at Cornhow works near Loweswater and piped out across West Cumbria, supplying drinking water to Silloth-on-Solway, Maryport, Workington, and dozens of smaller settlements. Generations of we...

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Image: Jim Woodward-Nutt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Crummock Water: A Body in the Lake

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ron Shirt, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1988 the lake briefly entered the national news for the wrong reason. The body of Sheena Owlett was found in Crummock Water, and the discovery initially baffled investigators. She had not died here. She had been murdered in Wetherby, more than seventy miles away in West Yorksh...

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Image: Ron Shirt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Crummock Water: Walking the Eastern Shore

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PC Bloke 1971 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. The road that runs alongside Crummock Water on the east hugs the lake closely between Buttermere village and Lanthwaite. Stop almost anywhere along it and you get the classic view: Mellbreak rising sheer to the west, Grasmoor and Whiteless Pike to the north-east, and Rannerdale K...

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Image: PC Bloke 1971 at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0