The Land of the Lune - Drakkar Press

Birk Beck
Birk Beck arises in Wasdale, as Wasdale Beck,
below Great Yarlside, which at 598m and 14km
from the junction with the Lune is only a little
lower and nearer than Green Bell. The most prominent
feature of this region is the cliff face of Shap Pink Quarry,
the existence of which tells us that there are locally rare
and valued rocks. There is an exposure of ‘Shap granite’,
an igneous rock with, amongst many other minerals,
crystals of orthoclase feldspar (potassium aluminium
silicate) so large that they may be studied with the naked
eye. Large pink boulders can be seen in the surrounding
fields and, as we saw, some made their way to the stone
circle near Orton.
The Shap granite is an uprising of the granite that
underlies the Lake District. It is seen in the western
Lakes around, for example, the more famous Wasdale.
This prompts consideration of how our Wasdale relates
to the Lake District. The Shap Fells are officially part
of the Lake District National Park, the eastern border of
which is the A6, but lovers of Lakeland tend to ignore
them. For example, Wainwright’s classic seven volumes
on Lakeland include a volume on the Eastern Fells and
another on the Far Eastern Fells but still do not go far
enough east to include the Shap Fells.
He argued that the Lakeland fells are “romantic in
atmosphere, dramatic in appearance, colourful, craggy,
with swift-running sparkling streams” but that the Shap
Fells have a “quieter and more sombre attractiveness”.
But then Wainwright loved a scramble: anywhere where
it was possible to settle into a brisk walking rhythm was
usually described as dull or tedious. Rather ironically,
the fact that the Shap Fells are in the National Park is
now being used to try to extend the boundary yet further
eastwards to include similar terrain.
South of the granite intrusion, the Shap Fells
bedrock is of the Silurian slates and grits that underlie
the Howgills. Here, however, deep peat gives blanket
bog, with some heather moorland. The variety of upland
vegetation supports breeding waders (curlew, lapwing,
redshank, snipe) and raptors (peregrine falcon, merlin),
although not very many, as far as I have seen. There’s
also a herd of red deer.
The headwaters of Wasdale Beck run off the slopes
of Great Yarlside and Wasdale Pike, heading northeast
to meet Longfell Gill, which passes the brother quarry,
Shap Blue Quarry, which mines darker shades of granite.
Birk Beck 33
Upper: Wasdale Beck below Shap Pink Quarry.
Lower: Sheep and ruin by Eskew Beck.
Two pages before: Upper Borrowdale from High
House Bank.
This is Chapter 2 of The Land of the Lune (2nd edition), http://www.drakkar.co.uk/landofthelune.html, Copyright © 2010 John Self