Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WINDERMERE

WINDERMERE, a village and a parish in Kendal district, Westmoreland; and a lake partly also in Lancashire. The village stands near the E side of the lake, at the terminus of the Kendaland Windermere railway, 5½ miles SSE of Ambleside; superseded and absorbed the hamlet of Birthwaite, after the opening of the railway in 1847; is built of dark grey schistose stone, with-limestone or sandstone facings; contains a number of villas; and has a head post-office, a r. station with telegraph, a large hotel, a neat church, and a large upper class-school, called St. Mary's college. The parish comprises Undermilbeck, Applethwaite, and Troutheck townships, and part of Ambleside; and includes Bowness village, and Lindreth, Storrs, and Winster hamlets. Acres, 17,139; of which 3,578 are water. Real property, exclusive of the part of Ambleside, £16,142; of which £40 are in fisheries. Pop. in 1851, 3,280; in 1861, 4,223. Houses, 722. The property is much subdivided. The manor belongs to the Earl of Lonsdale. Good residences are numerous; and the scenery is diversified and richly picturesque. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £253.* Patron, General Le Fleming. The church stands at Bowness; and is ancient, low, and long. The vicarage of Applethwaite and the p. curacy of Troutheck are separate benefices. There are two dissenting chapels, several schools, and charities £250.

The lake gave name to the parish; is properly, but not popularly, called Win and ermere; was known to the Saxons as Wonwaldremere; figures in record as the scene in 791, of Ethred's slaughter of the sons of Elf-wald; extends 10 miles in length, in nearly a straight line, from N to S; begins at Waterhead, about a mile S of Ambleside, and goes to Fellfoot, about a mile NE of Newby-Bridge; is nowhere more than about a mile in breadth; looks to the eye, from many a vantage-ground, like a reach of a great continental river; has a surface-elevation of 116 feet above sea-level, and a maximum depth of 240 feet; receives the waters of Brathay river, and Stockgill, Blelham, Canseybeck, and Troutheck streams; sends off its superfluence, at the foot, in the river Leven; abounds with perch, pike, trout, and char; is studded, in its central parts, over about 4¼ miles, with-numerous islets and islands; shows pleasant flexures of bay and promontory around its margins: exhibits softness, ornature, and graceful beauty of scenery through out its shores; combines with diversified foregrounds and grandly mountainous backgrounds, as seen from many points of view, to form a series of most magnificent landscapes; and is traversed, round all its circuit, several times a-day, by steamers starting from Bowness, and calling at several stations. An observer, approaching from any one of numerous directions, sees

The bed of Windermere,
Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.
With exultation at his feet he sees
Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
A universe of nature's fairest forms,
Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,
Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Windermere CP       Kendal RegD/PLU       Westmorland AncC
Place names: WINDERMERE     |     WONWALDREMERE
Place: Windermere

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