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We're celebrating UNESCO World Heritage status….

We can now count the Lake District alongside the Taj Mahal, the Tower of London and the Great Barrier Reef. Thank you to everyone who has supported us on the journey so far. Read our Blog articles and discover what makes our beautiful landscape so special. Would you like to contribute to the blog? Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you, contact us


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World Heritage UK summer workshops

World Heritage UK’s summer workshop to be held at Ambleside University of Cumbria campus on 12th - 13th July will look at what World Heritage Sites can do for nature. The workshop will be held at the University of Cumbria at Ambleside and presentations will be broadcast digitally too. There will also be the opportunity to undertake excursions into the Lake District, to see how the English Lake District World Heritage Site is managing its OUV and nature harmoniously. LIMITED TICKETS AVAILABLE – BOOK EARLY https://worldheritageuk.org/events/world-heritage-sites-nature/

12 May 2023
 
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Fix the Fells project wins an award

Fix the Fells is a partnership programme between the National Trust, the Lake District National Park, Natural England, Friends of the Lake District and the Lake District Foundation.  The aim of the Fix the Fells partnership is to protect the spectacular Lake District landscape from erosion damage by repairing and maintaining upland paths.   The project has won the Park Protector Award by the Campaign for National Parks.

22 Jul 2022
 
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What is hefting?

There are parts of the English Lake District's World Heritage story that warrant further explanation. The traditional methods of farming the fells and mountains include hefting, a way of farming that is incredibly important in the Lakes, in the past but also now and into the future. Below Mervyn Edwards MBE, former upland farming adviser for MAFF, Defra and Natural England, and now member of the English Lake District World Heritage Site Technical Advice Group explains what hefting is.

02 Apr 2020
 
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Visualising OUV

The reasons why the English Lake District is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, or what our Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) is, are complicated. They are both tangible and intangible and this makes explaining them difficult. So when the chance comes along to try and explain OUV via professional photography, you should really grasp the opportunity quickly.

10 Mar 2020
 
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125 years of the National Trust

Sunday 12th January is the National Trust’s 125th anniversary. Happy birthday! The National Trust was established back in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. They shared a belief in the importance of historic places and green spaces, and fought to preserve them for everyone’s ‘enjoyment, refreshment and rest’. Today the National Trust is Europe’s largest conservation charity, with 5.6 million members, 65,000 volunteers and 14,000 staff, caring for over 250,000 hectares of farmland, 780 miles of coastline and 500 historic properties, gardens and nature reserves, for everyone, for ever.

12 Jan 2020
 
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Hows and Knotts: A Guide to Lakeland Views

The first book about the Lake District as a World Heritage Site has just been published. Titled Hows and Knotts: A Guide to Lakeland Views the book explains why the Lake District received the World Heritage accolade from UNESCO by taking the reader to 22 viewpoints in the National Park and then describing features of interest and why they are there.

23 Aug 2019
 
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Two years and counting...

Tuesday 9th July 2019 was the second anniversary of the English Lake District's inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

11 Jul 2019
 
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Rail Recovery campaign

Cumbria Tourism has launched a £285,000 marketing campaign aiming to rebuild visitor confidence in train services and positively inspire potential visitors to the English Lake District.

03 Jun 2019
 
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World Heritage Day 2019

Thursday 18th April is World Heritage Day. World Heritage is the shared wealth of humanity, both natural and cultural. Protecting and preserving these valuable assets needs the collective efforts of all communities. This celebratory day provides the chance to raise awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage and the efforts that are required to protect and conserve it.

16 Apr 2019
 
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England’s World Heritage Story: The North

England’s Northern World Heritage Story: The North is a VisitEngland Discover England Fund project led by Cumbria Tourism. Its primary goal is to raise awareness of and increase visitor numbers to the six UNESCO World Heritage Sites in across Northern England - Saltaire, Hadrian's Wall, Durham Castle & Cathedral, Studley Royal Park & Fountains Abbey, Liverpool Mercantile Maritime City and the English Lake District.

11 Apr 2019
 
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2018's World Heritage UK conference

The English Lake District is part of a UK family of 31 World Heritage Sites, from St Kilda in the north, to the Cornish Mines in the south. This family even extends beyond the UK’s shores to a handful of overseas territories, in the Atlantic and all the way to the Pacific. This group comes together once a year for the annual World Heritage:UK conference.

19 Oct 2018
 
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“With high objects, with enduring things, with life and nature…” A view from Natural England

William Wordsworth, in The Prelude, describes how the natural world of the Lake District meant so much to him from early childhood and how essential nature is to the human soul. The Lake District is still an area where there are many special places for nature and wildlife managed for the intrinsic value of their biodiversity and geology, for the benefits they provide and for the pleasure they bring to locals and visitors alike.

03 Jul 2017
 
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UNESCO visit takes bid a step closer

Last week we completed a major milestone in the Lake District’s nomination to be a World Heritage Site, with two expert assessors from UNESCO’s cultural heritage advisory body visiting us. It was a near impossible task to do this wonderful place justice in just a week, but the Lake District National Park, together with a range of organisations from the partnership, pulled together a fantastic programme showcasing three key themes of the bid: identity, inspiration and conservation.

11 Oct 2016
 
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Wordsworth Country comes to the capital

Euston Station welcomed ‘a host of golden daffodils’ earlier today, as part of a new campaign to encourage the public to see the Lake District as ‘Wordsworth Country’ once again. The Wordsworth Trust wants to get ‘Wordsworth Country’ back in the popular imagination, and raise awareness of the many sites of natural beauty that helped inspire the writer whose works have helped to draw visitors to the region which he described as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found”.

03 Aug 2016
 
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10 reasons the Lake District deserves World Heritage status

The Lake District is a cultural landscape that has inspired generations of artists, writers, industrialists, entrepreneurs and farmers to shape the world around them. It is continually changing as communities, visitors and businesses blend together to create an evolving masterpiece.

13 Jul 2015