Glacial landscapes in the UK

During the last ice age (the Devensian, ending about 11 700 years ago), ice sheets up to 1 km thick covered the northern half of the British Isles. The landscapes left behind dominate Scotland, the Lake District, Snowdonia and parts of northern England — and they still shape tourism, farming and water supply today.

Glacial processes

Three processes do the work of carving the land:

1. Freeze-thaw weathering — meltwater seeps into rock cracks, freezes overnight (expanding by 9 %), wedges the rock open and shatters fragments. This produces the angular scree seen on Striding Edge.
2. Plucking — meltwater at the base of the glacier refreezes onto rock, and as the glacier moves it tears chunks away. Plucking creates the steep, jagged back-walls of corries.
3. Abrasion — the embedded rock fragments act like sandpaper as the glacier slides, scratching striations into bedrock and grinding it smooth.

The glacier transports material as moraine (debris carried on, in or under the ice) and deposits it when it melts.

Landforms of glacial erosion

• Corrie (cwm/cirque) — armchair-shaped hollow on a mountainside (e.g. Red Tarn, Helvellyn, Lake District). Forms where snow accumulated, became firn then ice, rotated downslope and eroded a hollow by plucking and abrasion. After deglaciation, a tarn (small lake) often fills the hollow.
• Arête — narrow knife-edge ridge between two corries (e.g. Striding Edge and Swirral Edge flanking Helvellyn).
• Pyramidal peak — three or more corries cut back-to-back leaving a sharp summit (the most famous is the Matterhorn; in the UK, Snowdon approximates one).
• Glacial trough (U-shaped valley) — deep, steep-sided, flat-floored valley, e.g. Nant Ffrancon, Snowdonia. Tributary glaciers leave hanging valleys with waterfalls.
• Ribbon lake — long, deep lake on a U-valley floor where the glacier eroded softer rock more deeply (e.g. Lake Windermere, Wast Water).
• Truncated spur — interlocking spurs of the original V-shaped river valley sliced off by the glacier.

Landforms of glacial deposition

• Moraine — terminal (deposited at the snout — marks the maximum glacier extent), lateral (along the sides), medial (where two glaciers merged) and ground (under the ice).
• Drumlin — egg-shaped hill of till, blunt end facing upstream (e.g. Ribble Valley drumlin field, Lancashire).
• Erratic — large boulder dumped far from its source. Bowder Stone, Borrowdale (a 2 000-tonne block of Borrowdale volcanic rock perched on softer rock).

A UK glaciated upland — the Lake District

A glaciated landscape has economic value but the activities clash:

• Tourism — 18 million visitors a year; £1.4 bn into the local economy. Drawn by Wast Water, Helvellyn, Windermere.
• Farming — hill sheep farming on poor, thin soils. Iconic Herdwicks; supported by subsidies.
• Forestry — commercial conifer plantations (Whinlatter, Grizedale).
• Quarrying — Honister slate mine still extracts roofing slate; brings 60 jobs but visual scars.
• Water supply — Thirlmere and Haweswater are reservoirs piping water to Manchester since 1894.

Conflicts and management

Tourism damages the resource it depends on: footpath erosion (Lake District National Park spends £400 000/year on path repair on Helvellyn alone), traffic congestion in honeypot villages (Bowness, Ambleside), water pollution from boats on Windermere, second-home buying pricing locals out (Coniston second-home rate ~25 %).

Management strategies include the National Park's Fix the Fells footpath restoration programme, park-and-ride schemes (Keswick), the 10-knot speed limit on Windermere (introduced 2005), and affordable-housing exception sites for locals.

Examiner tips

• For 6/9-mark questions, name specific landforms (Red Tarn, Striding Edge, Wast Water) — examiners look for case-study detail.
• Always link process to landform ("plucking and abrasion deepen and steepen the back-wall of the corrie").
• Conflict questions reward balanced answers: tourism creates jobs and footpath erosion. Use figures (18 m visitors, £1.4 bn).