Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BUTTERMERE

BUTTERMERE, a village, a township-chapelry, and a lake, in Brigham parish, Cumberland. The village stands about midway between Buttermere lake and Crummock water, 8½ miles SW of Keswick r. station, and 10 SSE of Cockermouth; and consists of only a church two inns, and a few scattered houses. The church is new and neat, on the site of a previous one which was said to be the smallest in England; and one of the inns supplies boats for the neighbouring lakes, and is notable for the pathetic story of "Mary of Buttermere." The chapelry includes the village; and its Post Town is Loweswater, under Cockermouth. Acres, 4,398. Real property, £1,129. Pop., 101. Houses, 18. The property is divided among a few. Hassness, the seat of General Benson, is on the NE side of the lake. The general surface is a grand vale, engirt with mountains, and much occupied with the lakes. A steep mountainpass, called Buttermere-Haws, goes from the village, to an elevation of about 1,600 feet, on the road to Keswick. Blue slate is quarried. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £56. Patron, the Earl of Lonsdale. The lake extends from the head of the vale to within a mile of Crummock water; is 1¼ mile long, ¾ of a mile broad, and 90 feet deep; and has a surface elevation of 247 feet above the level of the sea. Its face looks gloomy; but its skirts are magnificent, being immediately overhung by Honister Crag, with a precipitous front, about 1,500 feet high, and by the Hay-Stacks, High-Crag, High-Stile, Red-Pike, Buttermere-Moss, and Great-Robinson mountains.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a township-chapelry, and a lake"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Brigham CP/AP       Cumberland AncC
Place: Buttermere

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