Potter Fell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Potter Fell |
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The cairn on the summit of Brunt Knott
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 427 m (1,401 ft) |
| Geography | |
 Potter Fell
Location in Lake District
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| Location | Cumbria, England |
Potter Fell is a special kind of hill called a fell in Cumbria, England. It's located near the villages of Burneside and Staveley. A fell is a high, open piece of land, often found in hilly areas like the Lake District.
Potter Fell is home to several small lakes, known as tarns. The most well-known are Gurnal Dubs and Potter Tarn. This fell has four main high points, called summits. Two of these summits, Brunt Knott and Ulgraves, are even mentioned in a famous book by Alfred Wainwright called The Outlying Fells of Lakeland.
Exploring Potter Fell's Summits
Potter Fell has four different peaks, or summits. Two of these peaks don't have official names.
The first unnamed summit is about 395 meters (1,296 feet) high. You can reach it by climbing up from Bowston, a village near Burneside.
Further north from this first peak is Brunt Knott. This is the highest point on Potter Fell, standing at 427 meters (1,401 feet). At its very top, you'll find a stone marker called a triangulation station. This used to help mapmakers figure out distances and heights.
Between these two summits, there's a small pool of water with a wall running right through it. Alfred Wainwright, the famous walker and writer, called this interesting spot "wall through a pool."
To the east of these first two summits is another unnamed peak, which is about 390 meters (1,280 feet) high.
Even further east is the fourth summit, Ulgraves, which is 332 meters (1,089 feet) tall. Just like Brunt Knott, Ulgraves also has a trig point at its highest spot. From the top of Ulgraves, you can look down into the beautiful Longsleddale valley.
Alfred Wainwright suggested a walking path that goes in a circle, starting on the road between Bowston and Staveley. This path takes you past all four of these summits, both the named ones and the unnamed ones.
The Tarns of Potter Fell
Potter Fell is home to several tarns, which are small mountain lakes. The two most important ones are Gurnal Dubs and Potter Tarn.
Potter Tarn is located at the bottom of the climb to the unnamed summit (the one that's 395 meters high). This tarn is very important because it provides water to the Croppers Paper Mill in Burneside. A concrete dam helps control how much water flows out of the tarn. The water level in Potter Tarn is now about half of what it was in 1990, because the dam was made lower back then. The water flowing out of Potter Tarn first goes into a place called Ghyll Pool before it travels down to the paper mill.
Gurnal Dubs is a popular spot for fishing. People who want to fish there need to get special permission from the Kent Angling Association. This tarn is located to the west of Ulgraves and south of the unnamed summit (395 meters). Gurnal Dubs also has a small boathouse that was fixed up in 1985.
