Burn Moor

Burn Moor lies between the villages of Wasdale Head and Boot in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria. The 5 mile route over Burn Moor has two historic pack horse associations. The first was for trade: moving goods from farm to market and from town to town. The second was as a corpse road. Until the early twentieth century, Wasdale Head didn’t have consecrated ground for burials, so bodies had to be transported to Boot to be interred.

The route is considered lonely, and there is a sad tale that after the death of someone in Wasdale Head, the body was loaded on a packhorse and taken on its final journey to Boot in Eskdale for burial. The horse and corpse were lost on Burn Moor, never to be found, with the location of the disappearance noted in the guidebook we used on our walk over Burn Moor. The location was approximately where we encountered bogs and watched our Fell Ponies extricate themselves, so I easily came to the conclusion that the horse and corpse in the story were sucked down into a bog, never to emerge again.

Christine Robinson expanded on the tale. She said that a young man had died in Wasdale Head, and the horse carrying his corpse over Burn Moor was lost en route. When the news was relayed to the young man’s mother, she became so upset that she died. When her body was en route over Burn Moor, that horse and corpse were also lost. The horse with the body of the young man was eventually found, but the lost grieving mother haunts the moor still.

Perhaps the most famous modern traveler over the ancient packhorse routes of the Lake District was Bob Orrell who took two Fell Ponies on his Saddle Tramp in the Lake District in the 1970s. He recounts the following corpse road story in his book:

“In the days before Wasdale Head had its own consecrated ground, those unfortunate enough to expire in this remote corner of Cumberland were denied their final rest until the mortal remains had been carried, on horseback, for burial to St. Catherine’s in Eskdale. There are numerous tales told of horses bolting and disappearing into the mist, still carrying the coffin, never to be seen again, but the one I like best concerns a farmer in Wasdale who was plagued by a nagging wife. Blessed relief came one day, when the wife took ill and died. She was quickly put in a coffin and the funeral party set off for Eskdale. Crossing Burnmoor the pony slipped and the coffin bumped against a rowan tree and revived the old wife. There was nothing they could do but troop back to Wasdale, where she made the poor man’s life even more miserable. After a few years she finally passed away, and once more the funeral party set off for Eskdale. The farmer was very careful not to jolt the coffin and, as they neared the rowan tree, he shouted to his son, who was leading the pony, ‘Be careful as thou passes yon tree, Jack. We don’t want any more accidents.’”

There is a pack horse bridge in Boot at the end of today’s walking route.

Christine Robinson and the author in 2015 on Boot Pack Horse Bridge with Linnel Doublet and Hynholme Amber.