Keswick

Keswick is a Town in the county of Cumbria.

Keswick postcode: CA12 4

There are great places to visit near Keswick including some great hills, hiking areas, villages, ancient sites, ruins, old mines, waterfalls, rivers and streams, lakes, woodlands, towns, mountains, castles, historic buildings, historic monuments, caves, bluebell woods, nature reserves, disused railway lines, airports and islands.

Keswick's best nearby hills can be found at Cartmel Fell, White Pike (Seathwaite), The Knott, Broughton Moor, Catbells, Orrest Head, and Haystacks.

Keswick's best nearby hiking areas can be found at Cartmel Fell, Coniston Coppermines Valley, Borrowdale, Styhead Tarn, Troutbeck, Orrest Head, and Wild Boar Fell.

Villages to visit near Keswick include Eskdale, Coniston, Seatoller, Troutbeck, High Borrans, Kentmere, and Brigsteer.

There are a several good ancient sites in the Keswick area like Hardknott Roman Fort, The Hawk, Sunkenkirk Stone Circle, Castlerigg Stone Circle, High Borrans Romano-British Settlement, Mayburgh Henge, and Gunnerkeld Stone Circle.

Keswick's best nearby ruins can be found at Bonsor East Mine Workings, Bonsor Dressing Floors, Penny Rigg Copper Mill, Appletree Worth, Stephenson Ground Limekiln (ruin), Water Yeat Limekiln (ruin), and Hebblethwaite Hall Gill.

The area around Keswick boasts some of the best old mines including Penny Rigg Quarry Adit, Three Kings Mine, Tilberthwaite Gill Head Waterfall Level, Horse Crag Quarry, Tilberthwaite Deep Level Adit, Cathedral Quarry, and Parrock Quarry.

Tilberthwaite Gill, Rydal Falls, Hebblethwaite Hall Gill, Styhead Gill Waterfalls, Taylorgill Force, Aira Force, and Hell Gill Force are some of Keswick best waterfalls to visit near Keswick.

River Lickle, Appletree Worth Beck, Styhead Gill, Crowdundle Beck, Aira Beck, Hell Gill, and River Kent at Kentmere are some of Keswick best rivers and streams to visit near Keswick.

The area around Keswick boasts some of the best lakes including Tarn Hows, Thirlmere Reservoir, Derwentwater, Styhead Tarn, Windermere, Wastwater, and Ullswater.

Keswick's best nearby woodlands can be found at Broughton Moor, Brigsteer Park, Cow Close Wood, Jeffy Knotts Wood, and Grubbins Wood.

Keswick has some unmissable towns nearby like Sedbergh, Bowness On Windermere, Ulverston, Penrith, Kendal, Ambleside, and Kirkby Stephen.

The area around Keswick boasts some of the best mountains including Scafell, Blencathra - Hallsfell Top, Skiddaw, Hartsop Dodd, Stony Cove Pike [Caudale Moor], Place Fell, and Wild Boar Fell.

Brough Castle, Lowther Castle, Pendragon Castle, Lammerside Castle, Kendal Castle, Sizergh Castle, and Castlesteads (Lowther) are some of Keswick best castles to visit near Keswick.

The area around Keswick features a number of interesting historic buildings including Acorn Bank, Acorn Bank Watermill, Church of St Peter Askham, St Michael’s Church at Lowther, Lowther Mausoleum, Askham Hall, and Smardale Gill Viaduct.

Fairy Steps is a great place to visit close to Keswick if you like historic monuments.

There are a number of caves near Keswick including Cathedral Quarry, Fairies Cave, Holy Well Cave, and Buttermere Tunnel.

Don't miss Cow Close Wood, and Jeffy Knotts Wood's bluebell woods if visiting the area around Keswick.

There are a several good nature reserves in the area around Keswick like Smardale Gill Nature Reserve.

Keswick is near some unmissable disused railway lines like Smardale Gill Nature Reserve,

The area around Keswick boasts some of the best airports including Barrow/Walney Island Airport, and Carlisle Lake District Airport.

Keswick is near some unmissable islands like Piel Island,

Keswick History

There are some historic monuments around Keswick:

Places to see near Keswick

Etymology of Keswick

The town is first recorded in Edward I’s charter of the 13th century, as “Kesewik”. Scholars have generally considered the name to be from the Old English, meaning “farm where cheese is made”, the word deriving from “cÄse” (cheese) with a Scandinavian initial “k” and “wÄ«c” (special place or dwelling), although not all academics agree. George Flom of the University of Illinois (1919) rejected that derivation on the grounds that a town in the heart of Viking-settled areas, as Keswick was, would not have been given a Saxon name; he proposed instead that the word is of Danish or Norse origin, and means “Kell’s place at the bend of the river”. Among the later scholars supporting the “cheese farm” toponymy are Eilert Ekwall (1960) and A. D. Mills (2011) (both Oxford University Press), and Diana Whaley (2006), for the English Place-Name Society.

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History of Keswick

Keswick was granted a charter for a market in 1276 by Edward I. This market has an uninterrupted history lasting for more than 700 years. The pattern of buildings around the market square remained broadly the same from this period until at least the late 18th century, with houses - originally timber-framed - fronting the square, and sturdily enclosed gardens or yards at the back. According to local tradition these stout walls and the narrow entrances to the yards were for defence against marauding Scots. In the event it appears that the town escaped such attacks, Scottish raiders finding richer and more accessible targets at Carlisle and the fertile Eden Valley, well to the north of Keswick. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, between 1536 and 1541, Furness and Fountains Abbeys were supplanted by new secular landlords for the farmers of Keswick and its neighbourhood. The buying and selling of sheep and wool were no longer centred on the great Abbeys, being handled locally by the new landowners and tenants. This enhanced Keswick’s importance as a market centre, though at first the town remained only modestly prosperous: in the 1530s John Leland wrote of it as “a lytle poore market town”. By the second half of the century, copper mining had made Keswick richer: in 1586 William Camden wrote of “these copper works not only being sufficient for all England, but great quantities of the copper exported every year” with, at the centre, “Keswicke, a small market town, many years famous for the copper works as appears from a charter of king Edward IV, and at present inhabited by miners”. Earlier copper mining had been small in scale, but Elizabeth I, concerned for the defence of her kingdom, required large quantities of copper for the manufacture of weapons and the strengthening of warships. There was the additional advantage for her that the Crown was entitled to royalties on metals extracted from English land. The experts in copper mining were German, and Elizabeth secured the services of Daniel Hechstetter of Augsburg, to whom she granted a licence to “search, dig, try, roast and melt all manner of mines and ores of gold, silver, copper and quicksilver” in the Keswick area and elsewhere.