News Lower Sixth Geographers Explore the Lake District’s Glacial Landscapes 14.05.2026

Our Lower Sixth Geographers recently headed to the Lake District for a weekend of intensive data collection. And they were in luck! Despite a forecast promising relentless Cumbrian drizzle, not a single drop of rain fell over the entire weekend.

After a smooth journey from London, they headed straight off the train to a hike up Bowscale Tarn for an introductory session on data collection techniques and afterwards travelled to their base at the Blencathra Field Studies Centre. Perched partway up the mountainside, the centre has commanding views over Helvellyn, Catbells, and Derwentwater, which is a perfect backdrop for a weekend of glaciation fieldwork. Saturday was spent in the Borrowdale Valley, a place Alfred Wainwright once described as ‘the loveliest square mile in the Lake District’. After measuring glacial features, the girls visited the enigmatic Bowland Stone, a longstanding geological mystery that is quite possibly (but, probably not) a glacial erratic. Following a brief stop to investigate a drumlin on the shores of Derwentwater, they headed into Keswick for a well-earned break. The following day saw the group travelling to Grasmere and trekking up to Easedale Tarn, measuring a range of glacial landforms in order to reconstruct past glacial movements. It was a long day out – covering around 12km of hiking – but the sun was shining and they made sure to include a visit to the famous gingerbread house in Grasmere. The students were exceptional throughout; they threw themselves into their tasks, fully committed to the data collection, and remained in high spirits. The girls will now move on to writing up these investigations for their A-Level or IB courses, which constitutes 20% of their final grade. More than this, memories were made that will last a lifetime.