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<< Our Photo Pages >> Bowder Stone - Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature in England in Cumbria

Submitted by eeveyb on Monday, 09 May 2005  Page Views: 16561

Natural PlacesSite Name: Bowder Stone
Country: England County: Cumbria Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
Nearest Town: Keswick  Nearest Village: Rosthwaite
Map Ref: NY255164
Latitude: 54.537364N  Longitude: 3.152929W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Anne T visited on 12th Jan 2020 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4 The Bowder Stone, Borrowdale: We parked in the car park (there is a small charge) and walked the quarter of a mile to this enormous boulder. The last time we came here, some time ago, we walked through the quarry and I remember photographing all the old tree roots emerging from the rock and forming strange and complex patterns. Not so now, a recent path runs uphill, following the western side of the boundary for the quarry. As usual, there was a party of young people, complete with mattresses, bouldering underneath the overhang. It was amusing to stand and watch them, although some of the tumbles looked a bit painful. Andrew headed up the ladder to the platform at the top, whilst I wandered round the other side of the stone, a megalith catching my eye.

coin visited - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 3

MAIGO have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.5 Ambience: 4 Access: 3.5

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by maigo : May2009 (Vote or comment on this photo)
a glacial erratic boulder dumped by a retreating glacial flow in the Ice Age.

The boulder weighs 2000 tonne, is 30 foot high and has a circumference of 90 feet. It gets it's name from Balder, son of the Norse god Odin. Today a ladder gives easy access to the top.
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Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Horatio : A glacial erratic in warmer times. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by durhamnature : Old photo, from "Pictorial Description..." via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by eeveyb : Aprox 10 miles South of Keswick off the B5289. 2000 tons / 30ft. high / 50ft. across / 90ft. in circumference. Rests in a state of a delicate balance. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : View from the top, 2011 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : Me on top of the Bowder Stone, 2011

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : Photo taken in 2011

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : The stone may be named after Balder, a Norse Sun God, son of Odin. Photo 2011

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : The was probably carried from Scotland by glaciers in the Ice Age. Photo 2011

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Antonine : The stone weighs around 2000 tons and is around 30ft high. It has a circumference of 90ft. Photo taken in 2011

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by isabelscott : Bowder Stone in 2018, clearly signposted from the road however not from footpaths surrounding the area.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by postman : On top of the Bowder stone.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by postman : Climber ready, boulder ready, go.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by postman : Bowled over at the Bowder stone.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by postman : Note all the white marks from climbers doing there bouldering.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Bladup : The Bowder stone.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Bladup

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Bladup : This stone is Near the Bowder stone, It's Just North of the car park.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by durhamnature : Sketch of location from "Complete Guide to the Lakes" via archive.org

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by durhamnature : Old cameo drawing from "History of the County of Cumberland" via archive.org

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Sunny100 : Illustration of The Bowder Stone, a glacial erratic boulder dumped by a retreating glacial flow, from Scotland, in the Ice Age (I don't know which one), but it was thousands of years ago. The boulder weighs 2000 tonne, is 30 foot high and has a circumference of 90 feet. It gets it's name from Balder, son of the Norse god Odin. Today a ladder gives access to the top.

Bowder Stone
Bowder Stone submitted by Dizzyb : The stone among the trees

Bowder stone
Bowder stone submitted by Dizzyb : Steps up to the top of the Bowder stone

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"Bowder Stone" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Re: Legend of the Bowder stone by Sunny100 on Monday, 01 July 2019
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The Bowder Stone, a tourist attraction in the Lake District, gets a new steel ladder in place of the old wooden one, which had started to rot away. This new ladder should last for a long time. Here's a BBC link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-46552224 A huge rock dubbed "one of the strangest" Lake District attractions is getting an upgrade.

Visitors to the Bowder Stone, near Keswick, can climb atop the boulder via a wooden ladder installed in the 1980s. But the set of steps has "reached the end of its lifespan", said the National Trust, which has applied for permission to install a metal replacement. The rock is said to be the height of six people and is thought to weigh 1,253 tonnes. It found popularity as a tourist attraction during the Victorian era, when people flocked to marvel at the geological wonder.
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Re: Legend of the Bowder stone by Andy B on Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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The Bowder Stone: A Cumbrian ‘Old Stone’ with a Nottingham connection by Frank E Earp

The Bowder Stone is situated in Burrowdale deep in the heart of the Lake District, at the southern end of Derwentwater, around 4 1/2 miles south of Keswick. It lies just under half a mile east of the B5289 in the narrowest point of the valley, known as ‘The Jaws of Burrowdale’. It is an extremely large, rectangular, box shaped boulder of ‘fine grained, dark greenish grey, andesite lava’. This lava spewed from a volcano sometime during the Ordovician period of the Palaeozoic Age, 485 – 443 million years ago. At around 59’ high and 26’ along its broad side, with an estimated weight of 1253 tons (Smith), its amazingly regular shape is entirely the product of nature.

There is a tale of how the Bowder Stone came to be where it is. All over Britain there is a legend which states that when the first humans settled in these isles, they found the land inhabited by a race of giants. A war for the control of the land broke-out between the human settlers and the giants, – the giants were defeated. The Stone is said to be a missile thrown by one of the hapless giants at his human adversaries. The truth of the matter is somewhat more mundane but never the less amazing.

Sometime around the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, the action of centuries of severe cold fractured the exposed strata of andesite lava on what is now Bowder Crag on Kings How over 850’ above the site of the Bowder Stone. The result was a massive ‘rock-fall’, with the Bowder Stone as the largest surviving chunk of debris.

Joseph Pocklington was an extremely wealthy man who acquired a number of country houses and estates in both Nottinghamshire and Cumbria. In 1798 he turned his attentions to ‘improving’ the land he had acquired in Borrowdale and The Bowder Stone.

Pocklington was fully aware of the sites potential as a tourist attraction, but it did not match his view of a ‘romantic landscape’. The first job he undertook was to clear all of the loose material around the base of the Stone. For the first time, this revealed the Stone in all its curious glory.

Next he built a fence around the Stone and the first permanent ladder to admit the public to its summit. A short distance from the Stone, Pocklington erected what he termed a ‘Druid Stone’ – a supposedly prehistoric monolith. Befitting an ancient magical place, Pocklington designed and built a mock hermitage or chapel and to control access to his ‘visitors attraction,’ a single story dwelling, – ‘Bowderstone Cottage’, – for the site’s caretaker and guide. Perhaps to conform to Georgian sensibilities, Pocklington installed a female guide in the cottage.

Pocklington’s idealized landscape around the Stone gave it the perfect false history mimicking that of other natural features like sacred springs; a natural feature which became a Druidic monument and was Christianised by the presence of a hermit’s chapel.

The stage was now set for the opening of Pocklington’s tourist attraction, and tours of the Bowder Stone soon became the highlight of the tourist round.

Read more at
https://nottinghamhiddenhistoryteam.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/the-bowder-stone-a-cumbrian-old-stone-with-a-nottingham-connection/

Refs: a booklet by retired Geologist, Alan Smith, entitled ‘The Story of The Bowder Stone’, published in 2003. With many thanks to Frank E Earp for the article extract and research.
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Re: Bowder Stone by Anonymous on Thursday, 27 March 2008
The Bowder stone is easily reached along a 600m track from the nearby National Trust car park.
You should visit the stone as it is like no other and you can climb to the top thanks to the wooden steps.


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Legend of the Bowder stone by Andy B on Thursday, 27 March 2008
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Dizzyb writes:
Legend of the Bowder stone.
It is the Balder stone and named after the Scandinavian Sun God.
I think it is not an erratic and fell from the fell above.
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    Re: Legend of the Bowder stone by Anonymous on Wednesday, 22 April 2009
    It is a different type of stone to the crags above or from the local area. It was probably transported here by glaciers from Scotland. Panoramic view here
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