Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership

The Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership Scheme ran from March 2019 to February 2024. Its vision was to unlock and reveal the hidden heritage of the Westmorland Dales, enabling more people to connect with, enjoy and benefit from this inspirational landscape.

Download the Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership Scheme Summary Report for an overview of the Scheme's successes.

Welcome …

… to the Westmorland Dales website.

The Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership Scheme aimed to unlock and reveal the hidden heritage of the Westmorland Dales, enabling more people to connect with, enjoy and benefit from this inspirational landscape. Specifically, its objectives were to:

Reveal the area’s hidden heritage.
Conserve what makes the area special.
Engage people in enjoying and benefitting from their heritage.
Sustain the benefits of the scheme in the long-term.

This was achieved through a programme of projects developed and delivered through the Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership, led by Friends of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, and mainly funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It ran over a five-year period from March 2019 to February 2024.

Here you can discover what makes the area so special, find out about the scheme’s projects, and view and download resources produced.

The Westmorland Dales

The Westmorland Dales is a beautiful area of Cumbria lying north of the Howgill Fells and within the north-west corner of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It stretches from Tebay in the south-west to Kirkby Stephen in the east and to Maulds Meaburn in the north-west. At its heart are the limestone fells above Orton and Asby, rich in natural and cultural heritage, and with magnificent views to the Pennines, the Howgills and the Lakeland fells. It drains into the Lune river catchment to the south and the Eden river catchment to the north. Relatively overlooked compared with its better-known neighbours, our projects have aimed to reveal its heritage for more to enjoy without detracting from its unique qualities. (Click on map for larger image)

Contact information

Friends of the Lake District

Murley Moss, Oxenholme Road, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 7SS

Main Telephone: 01539 720788

Email: [email protected]

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority
Yoredale, Bainbridge, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 3EL

Main Telephone: 01969 652300

Email: [email protected]

3.1 Love Your Landscape

Grants were distributed to a wide range of local groups in the area to implement their own projects, which met our objectives. These included tree planting, the restoration of heritage features, interpretation, and engagement projects.

A small grants scheme for voluntary and community groups, landowners, farmers, schools, and local councils to reveal, conserve, enhance, celebrate and raise awareness of the unique landscape of the Westmorland Dales.

Project lead: David Evans, Westmorland Dales team, Friends of the Lake District

In total, 17 Love Your Landscape grants were awarded to local groups and organisations to help them deliver their own projects, which complemented our Scheme objectives. These included:

Crosby Ravensworth Parish Tree Group – tree planting programme 2020-21.
Northern Viaduct Trust – new safety railings on Smardale Gill viaduct.
Kirkby Stephen Town Council – management plan for Jubilee Park.
Upper Eden Community Interest Company – Get Outside in the Westmorland Dales film.
Stainmore Railway Company – historic footbridge restoration at Kirkby Stephen East station.
Friends of Shap School – the Potting Shed project facilitating greater use of school grounds.
Crosby Ravensworth Primary School – new planted area adjacent to school grounds.
Asby Tree Group – tree planting programme 2021-22.
Crosby Ravensworth Parish Council – village and church leaflets, and display boards.
St Oswald’s PCC, Ravenstonedale – Gilbertine ruins interpretation and improvements.
Toaves Allotment Group – new community shed and community allotment area.
Tebay Parish Council – new footpath improving recreation ground access.
Shap Community Interest Organisation – celebrating Fell Ponies exhibition and events.
Asby Parish Council – the restoration of the historic well at Grange Hall.
Ravenstonedale Parish History Group – improving the storage of the parish archive.
Cumbria Local History Federation – a digital online resource for local archives.
Eden Arts – Epona community engagement project celebrating Fell Ponies.

The Get Outside in the Westmorland Dales film can be enjoyed here.

Webinars relating to the Crosby Ravensworth tree planting project and the two railway projects
can be found here:

Tree Planting for the Future webinar.

Stainmore Railway and its Viaducts webinar.

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3.2 Skills for the Future – Apprentices

Eight countryside worker apprentices were employed by YDNPA, and one cultural heritage trainee, who developed their skills and experience in undertaking a variety of projects with a wide range of partners, acting as great ambassadors for the Scheme and the organisation. Most have gone on to work in the conservation sector.
3.3 Discovering the Westmorland Dales

The project saw extensive work on the rights of way network, bringing it up to a similar standard to the rest of the national park, as well as linking it to the Pennine Bridleway and with an extension of the Yorkshire Dales Cycleway. The improved network has been promoted through a series of walking, cycling and horse-riding leaflets.
3.4 Distinctly Westmorland Dales

This project worked with local tourism businesses to promote the area’s heritage and to use that heritage to maximise the benefits to their businesses, mindful of the area’s distinct qualities, its Sense of Place, and sensitivities about attracting too many visitors.
3.5 Interpreting the Westmorland Dales

Interpretation was a key theme underpinning all our projects with new welcome panels and interpretive boards sensitively installed, leaflets and booklets produced, sounds recorded and stories retold, many of them engaging local people in the process and helping them and visitors enjoy and understand the area’s rich heritage.
3.6 Celebrating and Engaging

Engaging people was at the heart of the Scheme and most of its projects to celebrate the area’s heritage. A programme of general public engagement events was held from online webinars to annual landscape forums; volunteers were recruited, trained and engaged; projects delivered with local primary and secondary schools, and other training events held; art, including sound sculptures, land art, theatre and music was imaginatively used to engage a board cross-section of people.

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