Stream Dungeon Ghyll

Greater watershed Langdale Beck → River Brathay → Lake Windermere → ... Irish Sea?

Height Main fall of roughly 20m/66ft, lower fall of about 13m/42ft

Form Single drops

Volume Trickly to splashy

General location Great Langdale, Lake District, England

Specific location Above the Dungeon Ghyll Hotel

Trail access A little confusing, and I'll admit I don't remember all the details. I think the trail starts from roughly where you'd start hiking up to Stickle Tarn—there's a pub of some kind, and you'll see the waterfall on Stickle Ghyll pretty clearly—and then goes off to the left through pastures and mud. There may have been signs. The small stream cascading down from a somewhat hidden cleft is Dungeon Ghyll, so keep an eye out for it. Eventually you cross Dungeon Ghyll and then follow it upstream on a rather stony path, climbing moderately. The lower fall is in what looks like a cave and not really visible from the path—you have to scramble down to the creek level and take a rather sketchy route upstream to the mouth of its mini-chasm to see it. To get to the upper (main?) fall continue on the path until you get to a point where the path goes off to the left and the creek goes off to the right. Follow the creek. You can't see the fall until you get right up to it. (You can also see the fall by hiking further up the trail, but it's less exciting that way.) Total distance is... not far. Look, I'll just draw some directions on a photo.

 

Whilst prominently labeled on the Ordinance Survey maps of the area and having a hotel named after it, Dungeon Ghyll Force doesn't seem to receive a lot of attention. That could be partly because whereas the neighbouring stream originating from Stickle Tarn cascades down the valley in full view Dungeon Ghyll's waterfalls are hidden in a crevice and a narrow gorge, with only some small cascades visible from the valley floor (which have been—mistakenly I think—labeled as the "true" Dungeon Ghyll Force on some websites).

 

The trail is not particularly easy to find, which contributes to the apparent obscurity—bring a map—and the stream is quite small and possibly dries out to a trickle if it hasn't been raining, though in the Lake District that's not often. Nonetheless, these are among the most attractive falls in the Lake District and certainly the highlights (from a waterfall viewing standpoint) of Langdale.