Whitbarrow Scar from Mill Side

Whitbarrow is a limestone hill about 9km south-west of Kendal, just north of the A590 near Witherslack, and Wikipedia records that it is a national nature reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Its summit, Lord’s Seat, is 215m, and the cliffs along its western edge are the part properly called Whitbarrow Scar. Alfred Wainwright gave it a chapter in The Outlying Fells of Lakeland and called it, by Wikipedia’s quotation, the most beautiful walk in that book. The rock is Carboniferous limestone laid down some 350 million years ago, which is why the top is pavement and juniper instead of the volcanic crag of the central fells.

WalkLakes starts from the hamlet of Mill Side, at a layby across the cattle grid from the A590 that holds about half a dozen cars. The route climbs a steep tarmac lane, leaves the track by a signed permissive path through trees to the escarpment, then follows the top north to the cairn on Lord’s Seat. That cairn carries a plaque to Canon G. A. K. Hervey, who founded the Lake District Naturalists’ Trust, and Cumbria Wildlife Trust manages much of the reserve around it. The way down is by a faint path to Bell Rake, a loose limestone gully beside an old mine level, and then through High Park Wood and Witherslack back to the layby.

WalkLakes gives 10.9km with 304m of ascent and a minimum time of 2 hours 41 minutes, with a terrain grade of 3 for very rough ground and a navigation grade that calls for map and compass skills. Cumbria Wildlife Trust asks for dogs on a lead, and WalkLakes warns that the cattle on the summit make it potentially dangerous for a dog.

It suits a walker who wants a quiet half day on limestone with a Kent estuary view and does not need height. It does not suit anyone after a high fell, or anyone uneasy finding a faint path in cloud. For a shorter climb to a bigger view, Gummer’s How is a 25-minute walk from its car park.