Around Hayeswater Reservoir

This is a 4.9-mile loop from Hartsop village car park up to Hayeswater, around the tarn, and back down past the old waterworks. Allow about 3 hours with 331 m of ascent, rough ground, beck crossings, and stops. Faster rounds are possible, but 3 hours is a fair budget for most walkers.

From the car park you pass the sheep pens and cattle grid, then follow the access track that alternates between tarmac and rough stone, crossing Hayeswater Gill on the way up. The climb is steady rather than brutal, rising into the bowl below Gray Crag. At the tarn the going changes: you thread glacial moraine and a narrow, sometimes faint line above the shoreline, then work through marshier ground and small watercourses near the head. The return crosses the outfall footbridge and drops back on the lower track past the filter house and the Myers Head lead mine remains before rejoining the approach route.

Rate it moderate to hard, around 6/10. The approach track is straightforward, but the circuit itself is where people get caught out. Expect wet peat, tussocks, loose moraine, and unmarked sections with no continuous path across the head of the tarn. You will ford or hop small streams, and after heavy rain those crossings and the boggy stretches slow things down considerably. Basic map reading is genuinely useful here, and boots with ankle support beat trail shoes. This route is not suitable for pushchairs.

Hayeswater sits in a quiet-feeling mountain amphitheatre ringed by Gray Crag, The Knott, Hartsop Dodd and the High Street ridge. Hayeswater Gill delivers waterfalls and cascades on the lower half of the walk. The tarn was a reservoir until the dam came out in 2014, so the water now sits as a natural mountain tarn again, though the route name has stuck. The industrial traces add real interest: stone waterworks, the filter house, the mine remains, and the moraine ridges left behind by ice.

The fells around the bowl hold red deer, best spotted early or late from the higher ground. The valley has ground-nesting birds in spring and early summer, and mature ash pollards line the lower fields. Sheep and cattle graze throughout.

Start at the small, rough Hartsop village car park at the end of the narrow lane through the village, grid reference NY410130. Spaces are very limited and there is an honesty-box donation for parking, so arrive early and bring coins. Cow Bridge is a fallback, but it adds roughly a kilometre before you even reach the start. There are no toilets or facilities on the route. Dogs are welcome but should stay on a lead throughout because of grazing livestock, ground-nesting birds and deer. Cattle in the lower fields can be assertive, particularly with calves nearby, so give them room and take a wide line.

For families, anyone with a pushchair, or a shorter outing, the 3.2 km Hayeswater Gill walk covers the best of the cascades and valley views on the same lower ground and turns back before the rough stuff begins. The full loop is the better pick if you want route interest, quieter ground, and the whole circuit of the tarn.