Cautley Spout

Cautley Spout stands in the Howgill Fells, a wild upland area on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It lies just north of the small town of Sedbergh in what is now Cumbria but was once the West Riding of Yorkshire. The waterfall drops 198 metres down a steep cliff into a narrow glacial valley that leads away from a high plateau called The Calf. Unlike most English waterfalls, which fall in a single plunge or stepped tiers, Cautley Spout is a broken cascade. It is England’s highest waterfall above ground, though Gaping Gill and Hardraw Force have longer unbroken drops. The National Trust owns the nearby Cross Keys, a historic temperance inn that offers a place to rest after the walk. The path to the falls starts from a car park beside the inn and follows the beck upstream through rough pasture and heather moorland. The route climbs steadily for about two kilometres before reaching the viewpoint above the falls. Walkers often continue down to the base of the cascade, where the water crashes into a deep pool below the cliffs. Visitors find a dramatic scene of white water tumbling over black rock ledges into a narrow ravine. The sound of the falls fills the valley, and the spray rises high above the cliff. The surrounding fells rise steeply on either side, covered in coarse grass and patches of bracken. On calm days the mist from the falls hangs in the air, while in winter ice forms along the edges of the cascade. The bleak openness of the landscape makes the waterfall’s power all the more striking.