Wasdale

Another day of blue skies in the Lakes although a visit to Wasdale brought a little bit more cloud cover than in previous days. I usually get to Wasdale only once or twice a year as it is right at the other end of The Lakes to where I'm based so I like to pick a nice day for it. Unfortunately a Monday is a bad day for going no matter what the weather as that's the day the pie shop in Gosforth closes and if I remember rightly, I went on a Monday last year as well. This lad never learns!!

I've blogged about Wast Water before and I think everyone is familiar with the place so here are a couple of facts which people might not be aware of -

In 1976, The Wasdale Lady in the Lake, Margaret Hogg, was murdered by her husband and her body was disposed of in the lake. She was found after eight years, with her body preserved like wax due to the lack of oxygen in the water.
In February 2005 it was reported that a "gnome garden" complete with picket fence had been placed in the lake as a point of interest for divers to explore. It was removed from the bottom of Wastwater after three divers died in the late 1990s. It is thought the divers spent too much time too deep searching for the ornaments. Police divers report a rumour that the garden had been replaced at a depth beyond the lowest they were allowed to dive. PC Kenny McMahon, a member of the North West Police Underwater Search Unit, said "Wastwater is quite clear at the bottom, but there's nothing to see. At a depth of about 48 m, divers had taken gnomes down and put a picket fence around them. But several years ago there were a number of fatalities and the Lake District National Park Authority asked us to get rid of them. We went down there, put them in bags and removed the lot. But now there's a rumour about a new garden beyond the 50 m depth limit. As police divers we can't legally dive any deeper so, if it exists, the new garden could have been purposefully put out of our reach."

Suffice to say, the photography was good, the walk around the head of Wasdale was good as was the pint I had sat in the beer garden at the Wasadale Head Inn!