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.
Don't miss Cartmel Fell, Coniston Coppermines Valley, Borrowdale, Styhead Tarn, Troutbeck, Orrest Head, and Wild Boar Fell's hiking areas if visiting the area around Keswick.
The area around Keswick boasts some of the best villages including Eskdale, Coniston, Seatoller, Troutbeck, High Borrans, Kentmere, and Brigsteer.
The area around Keswick boasts some of the best ancient sites including Hardknott Roman Fort, The Hawk, Sunkenkirk Stone Circle, Castlerigg Stone Circle, High Borrans Romano-British Settlement, Mayburgh Henge, and Gunnerkeld Stone Circle.
Keswick has some unmissable ruins nearby like 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.
Keswick's best nearby waterfalls can be found at Tilberthwaite Gill, Rydal Falls, Hebblethwaite Hall Gill, Styhead Gill Waterfalls, Taylorgill Force, Aira Force, and Hell Gill Force.
There are a several good rivers and streams in the Keswick area like River Lickle, Appletree Worth Beck, Styhead Gill, Crowdundle Beck, Aira Beck, Hell Gill, and River Kent at Kentmere.
Keswick's best nearby lakes can be found at Tarn Hows, Thirlmere Reservoir, Derwentwater, Styhead Tarn, Windermere, Wastwater, and Ullswater.
Woodlands to visit near Keswick include 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.
Don't miss Brough Castle, Lowther Castle, Pendragon Castle, Lammerside Castle, Kendal Castle, Sizergh Castle, and Castlesteads (Lowther)'s castles if visiting the area around Keswick.
Acorn Bank, Acorn Bank Watermill, Church of St Peter Askham, St Michael’s Church at Lowther, Lowther Mausoleum, Askham Hall, and Smardale Gill Viaduct are some of Keswick best historic buildings to visit near Keswick.
There are a several good historic monuments in the area around Keswick like Fairy Steps.
Don't miss Cathedral Quarry, Fairies Cave, Holy Well Cave, and Buttermere Tunnel's caves if visiting the area around Keswick.
Cow Close Wood, and Jeffy Knotts Wood are great places to visit near Keswick if you like bluebell woods.
Smardale Gill Nature Reserve is a great place to visit close to Keswick if you like nature reserves.
Keswick is near some unmissable disused railway lines like Smardale Gill Nature Reserve,
Keswick's best nearby airports can be found at Barrow/Walney Island Airport, and Carlisle Lake District Airport.
There are a several good islands in the area around Keswick 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.
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.
Lakes near Keswick
Rivers near Keswick
Shopping in Keswick
Spar Shorley Lane, Keswick
Spar supermarket
Lakes & Dales Co-operative 25, Main Street
Lakes & Dales Co-operative supermarket
Booths Tithebarn Street, Keswick
Booths supermarket