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]

3.5 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.

Project lead: Amanda Walters, Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership, Friends of the Lake District

Together with community engagement, interpretation was one of the key elements which linked all our projects together. Many projects had an interpretive focus (e.g. 2.10 A Way Through), while others had a strong interpretive component (e.g. 1.1 Revealing the Foundations). But this project focussed on pulling the different strands together, telling the story of the landscape as a whole and interpreting it for all to enjoy and appreciate.

It was based on an interpretive strategy produced in the Scheme’s development stage, with details fleshed out in an interpretive plan produced in the Scheme’s delivery stage. Almost inevitably, as it drew on findings discovered as the Scheme progressed, much of it only came to fruition towards the Scheme's end.

It had several key components:

An illustrative map of the Westmorland Dales, used in leaflets and on boards.
A Westmorland Dales promotional leaflet, inviting people to escape to explore and experience this special landscape.
Welcome boards incorporating a map at key gateway locations in the area, including Orton, Ravenstonedale, Smardale, Kirkby Stephen and Kirkby Stephen station.
A booklet pack, available for sale at the tourist information centres (TICs) at Kirkby Stephen and Appleby, inviting people to “Take Time to Delve into the Westmorland Dales Landscape; individual booklets focussed on geology, the farming landscape, churches and legends.
A wildflower identification leaflet produced with Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
A Legends project working with Emily Hennessey, a professional storyteller, and local schools retelling three of the area’s legends in the booklet pack and on film: Tales of Pendragon Castle, the Witch of Tebay, and the Orton Dobbie.
Village map boards in Crosby Garrett, Newbiggin-on-Lune, Orton, Ravenstonedale, Shap and Tebay, highlighting key points of heritage interest.
Two interpretive panels at Tebay Services North and South highlighting the links to the Westmorland Dales.
Three interpretive panels at Great Asby Scar National Nature Reserve on its archaeology, geology and natural history; two at Knott Lane on its wildflower-rich verges and Gamelands Stone Circle; and one at Kirkby Stephen on Lady Anne’s Way.
A new leaflet for Little Asby Common is available at the TICs.
Updates to the Out of Oblivion and other websites, and the production of a sound tour of the Westmorland Dales by sound artist Dan Fox.
All this work involved extensive consultation with a wide range of interest groups. Support was also provided to interpretive projects funded through the Love Your Landscape grants, including the Gilbertine Ruins at Ravenstonedale.

Links to the Legends film and Sound Mosaic recording can be found here:

Legendary films and stories of the Westmorland Dales

A Sound Tour of the Westmorland Dales

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Our Fundraising Promise

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 including tree planting, the restoration of heritage features, interpretation and engagement projects.
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.
3.6 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.

Volunteering

Learn new skills and join our army of volunteers helping us to make a practical difference to the Lake District all year round.
Our Purpose

We are an independent charity and the only membership organisation dedicated to protecting and enhancing Cumbria's landscapes for future generations
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