Ravenglass - Roman baths and mountain railway

Eighteen hundred years ago troops of the First Cohort Aelia Classica of the Roman army in off duty periods could relax in the extensive recreational facilities of Glannoventa. It had underfloor heating, some compensation for the wild cold they'd been braving in the mountain foothills and maybe further afield and higher, up to Mediobogdum at the top of the pass.

This was what we now know as Ravenglass on the West Cumbria Coast. The remains of the recreational bath house, now in the care of English Heritage, are most of what remains of this outpost of the empire. Today people come here for two main purposes. Just over the brow of the hill is Muncaster Castle, a splendid historic house with much to attract visitors both inside and in the grounds, especially during the rhododendron flowering season.

In Ravenglass village itself is a rather special railway station. Actually it's a double station. There is the "big" train that comes up from Preston, Lancaster and Barrow on its way around the coast to Whitehaven, Workington and Carlisle. But that's not the big attraction. There's also "Laal (little) Ratty". The Ravenglass Railway, or to give its proper title The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, has now run as a preserved narrow gauge line for over fifty years. Before that it had been an industrial line since the 1870s, carrying not only passengers but the products of iron ore mines and granite quarries down to the main line for transportation on to the manufacturing centres of the Northwest and beyond.

The Ravenglass railway is seven miles long. It follows the river Mite to start with, then rounds the end of Muncaster Fell at Eskdale Green and on into the valley of the Esk, continuing upwards toward the foothills of England's highest peak, Scafell Pike. Many years ago there was a suggestion to extend it up the mountain so that Cumbria would have had an English equivalent of the Snowdon Mountain Railway in Wales. It didn't happen and given the strength of today's environmental campaigning it probably never will.

Although many thousands of visitors come here each year it is still true that the majority of visitors to the Lake District stay in the centre of the region and ignore the West Cumbria Coast area. There is, however, much to attract here including not only beautiful Eskdale but also a little further north the valleys of the two westernmost lakes, Wastwater and Ennerdale Water.