The Lake District had been drifting slowly northwards since it first began to form beneath the waters of the Iapetus Ocean, and it now lay just within the Tropic of Capricorn. The Ocean itself, though still worthy of the name, had shrunk to a fraction of its former size and now, along the north-west coast of Avalonia, stretched a long curving ridge of bare rock. It may have taken the form of an arc of island volcanoes, or perhaps a range of hills or mountains following the coastline, studded with active volcanoes – opinions differ as to the layout of the landscape, but of the presence of the volcanoes there is no possibility of doubt.
For although the Eycott Volcano had now spent its force, the battle which had caused it to erupt continued unabated. Pressure from the north-west was building steadily as Laurentia crept ever nearer. Great expanses of rock along the line of collision between the two continents were now crumpling up under the pressure to form great folds and ridges, while deep within the Earth huge cauldrons of magma continued to grow as the Iapetus Ocean floor was forced down into the mantle. Today, the remnants of these ancient volcanoes stretch in an arc from the Solway Firth, through the Lake District, Snowdonia and Pembrokeshire, to Leinster in south-east Ireland. Here the arc has been broken in two by the formation of the Altantic Ocean, so that the remaining volcanoes now lie far away in the Appalachian Mountains of North America. |
The young Skiddaw Slates, overtopped in places by the cold and hardened ashes and lavas of the Eycott Volcano, lay towards the northern extremity of the arc. The eruptions which were about to add a new dimension to this burgeoning landscape would be colossal, dwarfing not only their herald, the Eycott Volcano, but even the most violent eruptions ever known to mankind. Within 10 million years, the Skiddaw Slates would be deeply buried beneath over 6 kilometres of ash and lava. The story of the Borrowdale Volcanic rocks is dramatic and violent. The chaos that accompanied their creation has been etched into the rocks themselves and they can be confusing and ambiguous. But they are above all tough and resilient: born in conflict, they have survived trauma and catastrophe, yet the scars they carry contribute to their beauty. They bring to Lakeland its rugged heart: the steep crags and dramatic gullies of Helvellyn, Wetherlam, Great Gable and Pavey Ark; the boulder-strewn slopes and tumbling becks of Tilberthwaite, Mickleden and Watendlath, and the precipitous flanks of Borrowdale, whose name they bear. The rocks themselves are often passed by without a second glance, trampled underfoot in the pursuit of some distant summit, and yet their peculiar combination of violent power and delicate beauty deserves our admiration and respect. |