A remote reservoir in eastern Lakeland that drowned the village of Mardale Green, and England's last home for the golden eagle
Haweswater lies in a quiet, steep-sided valley in the far east of the Lake District, and it holds a sadder story than most Lakeland waters. In the 1930s Manchester Corporation dammed the valley to supply the city with water, raising the level and flooding the farming village of Mardale Green along with its church and inn; in a long dry summer, when the reservoir drops, the old field walls and building foundations show above the mud again. The remote fells above the water, around Riggindale, were the last place in England where a golden eagle held on, a lone male that finally disappeared in the 2010s. This is a long, wild reservoir with a road along only one side and few visitors, popular with walkers heading up onto High Street, a ridge with a Roman road along its top, or dropping down off the Coast to Coast route. Blea Water, a deep tarn (a small mountain lake) in the crags above, feeds the head of the valley.
