Читать книгу The Lune Valley and Howgills. 40 scenic fell, river and woodland walks онлайн

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Although it gives its name to Lancashire, the River Lune is born in what was Westmorland, a historic county that was swallowed up within Cumbria during the reorganisation of local government in 1974. The river’s higher reaches fall from the Howgill Fells in a fold that separates the western dales of Yorkshire from the rolling hills of south-east Lakeland. The river enters Lancashire only below Kirkby Lonsdale, but immediately encounters some of the county’s prettiest countryside. Lower down it skirts the Forest of Bowland before passing through Lancaster to find eventual release into Morecambe Bay and the Irish Sea.

Although surrounded by hills, it is the Howgill Fells to which the Lune is most intimately related, that distinctive massif of high ground rising dramatically to the east of the M6 as it passes through the deep trough of the Lune Gorge. The tentacles of the river’s upper tributaries completely encircle this compact group and effectively set it apart from the neighbouring Pennine and Lakeland hills.