Little Langdale

Little Langdale is a valley in the Lake District, England, containing Little Langdale Tarn and a hamlet also called Little Langdale. A second tarn, Blea Tarn, is in a hanging valley between Little Langdale and the larger Great Langdale to the north. Little Langdale is flanked on the south and southwest by Wetherlam and Swirl How, and to the north and northwest by Lingmoor Fell and Pike of Blisco. The valley descends to join with Great Langdale above Elter Water.

Langdale was previously known as Langdene meaning 'far away wooded valley' and referring to its distance along the flint route from Whitley Bay.

Historically Little Langdale was at the intersection of packhorse routes leading to Ravenglass, Whitehaven, Keswick, Penrith & Carlisle, Ambleside, Hawkshead, and Coniston, Ulverston, Broughton-in-Furness and Barrow in Furness. Slater's Bridge which crosses the River Brathay in three spans supported by a large mid-stream boulder and stone causeways is a 16th-century, slate-built, former packhorse bridge on one of these routes. Today metalled roads from Little Langdale lead west over Wrynose Pass and Hardknott towards Eskdale, northwest by Blea Tarn to Great Langdale, northeast to Elterwater and east to the Skelwith Bridge - Coniston road.

National Cycle Network's Regional Route 37 between Ambleside and Ulverston runs through the valley.

The National Trust owns many farms and areas of land in the valley, many of which date from the 17th century. Other than the farms and houses the village also has an inn. The Three Shires Inn was built in 1872 and is named after the Three Shires Stone two miles (3 km) away. The Inn is the base for the Three Shires Fell Race.

The valley has an annual rainfall of 2,408 millimetres (94.8 in), higher than the Lake District average, which is itself considerably wetter than the UK average. The land in Little Langdale is now mainly used for sheep and cattle farming, although until 1940 at least some of the farmland was ploughed.

The valley was used as a venue in March 2006 for practising a 'mujahidin commando raid' by a group, one of whom was later convicted for terrorism related offences. Little Langdale was the filming location for the 2012 movie Snow White and the Huntsman.

Little Langdale has been heavily mined and quarried over the last several hundred years particularly for copper and slate although there is little activity there at present. Workings in the vicinity include the extensive slate quarries at Hodge Close, Tilberthwaite and the mines on the southern slopes of Wetherlam. A nearby mine at Hawk Rigg possibly dates from the Elizabethan era and it was reported in 1709 that iron ore was mined in the area. Slate mining particularly boomed in the area in the Victorian Era after the introduction of compressed air drills for making the blast holes, and continued until the introduction of high quality bricks for building.