Tarn Hows

Tarn Hows
Tarn Hows in winter 2006
Location	Lake District
Coordinates	54°23′N 3°02′W / 54.383°N 3.033°W / 54.383; -3.033Coordinates: 54°23′N 3°02′W / 54.383°N 3.033°W / 54.383; -3.033
Type	artificial
Primary outflows	Tom Gill
Catchment area	1.11 km2 (0.43 sq mi)
Basin countries	United Kingdom
Max. length	0.971 km (0.603 mi)
Max. width	0.258 km (0.160 mi)
Surface area	15 ha (37 acres)
Average depth	5.4 m (18 ft)
Max. depth	8.8 m (29 ft)
Water volume	0.000754 km3 (611 acre·ft)
Shore length1	3.1 km (1.9 mi)
Surface elevation	180–188 m (591–617 ft)
Islands	5
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Tarn Hows is an area of the Lake District National Park, containing a picturesque tarn, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Coniston and about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwest of Hawkshead. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the area with over half a million visitors per year in the 1970s and is managed by the National Trust.

Tarn Hows is fed at its northern end by a series of valley and basin mires and is drained by Tom Gill which cascades down over several small waterfalls to Glen Mary bridge: named by John Ruskin who felt that Tom Gill required a more picturesque name and so gave the area the title 'Glen Mary'.

The Tarn Hows area originally contained three much smaller tarns, Low Tarn, Middle Tarn and High Tarn.

Wordsworth's Guide Through the District of the Lakes (1835 edition) recommends walkers to come this way but passes the tarns without mention.

Until 1862 much of the Tarn Hows area was part of the open common grazing of Hawkshead parish. The remaining enclosed land and many of the local farms and quarries were owned by the Marshall family of Monk Coniston Hall (known as Waterhead House at the time). James Garth Marshall (1802–1873) who was the Member of Parliament for Leeds (1847–1852) and third son of the industrialist John Marshall, gained full possession of all of the land after an enclosure act of 1862 and embarked on a series of landscape improvements in the area including expanding the spruce, larch and pine plantations around the tarns; demolition of the Water Head Inn at Coniston; and the construction of a dam at Low Tarn that created the larger tarn that is there today.