The Eastern Fells – Day 4
Hart Side
Thursday 15 October
I decided to give myself a shorter day and visit the rather inaccessible Hart Side using the path above Ullswater which AW suggests has the finest views of the lake anywhere in the area. A path marked on the OS 1:25,000 map starts from the old quarry which is now a National Trust car park half a kilometre south of Dockray. It’s not signposted as a public footpath, but is a narrow strip squeezed between the old quarry wall and the field fence. It starts steeply, passes a derelict quarry building, and clambers up a short rock step before emerging into more open land. The field fence becomes a wall; a little further the path crosses to the other side and follows the wall, gaining height in a series of short uphill sections. The views are certainly excellent, though the low sun over the lake meant no photographs. A little over a kilometre in, a faint path comes in from the right; this is the old miners’ track from Dockray.
Eventually, after passing below Brown Hills the path turns away from the wall and cuts across country, leaving the views of the lake behind. Reaching another wall and following it uphill brings you to within a short distance of a large monument marking Birkett Fell. Hart Side is in view; the summit is the spot height 756m (‘Cairns’), a little north of where the OS map puts the words ‘Hart Side’.
AW is right to be dismissive of the summit and surrounds; featureless uplands of grass and marsh, not a place for a leisurely lunch stop in a cool fresh wind. I stopped instead near the wall below Brown Hills before continuing back, taking the old miners’ track back to Dockray over Watermillock Common and finishing off by walking the last half a kilometre along the road back to the quarry car park.
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