The Bridge at Aira Force
One of the most famous of the Lake District waterfalls, Aira Force falls 70 feet from below a stone bridge and is on land owned by the National Trust.
The stream which flows over the waterfall is Aira Beck. The river name Aira is derived from Old Norse, ‘eyrr’ meaning a gravel bank, and ‘a’ meaning a river. The Old Norse word ‘fors’ meaning waterfall has been adopted into several northern and English dialects, with the English spelling ‘Force’. Therefore, the name Aira Force describes ‘The waterfall on gravel-bank river’.
After a walk along this part of Ullswater, Wordsworth wrote his most famous poem, ‘Daffodils’. He also wrote a short lyric called ‘Airey-Force Valley’.
The small arched bridge spanning the top of the stream just as the beck goes over the falls gives a spectacular view. There is also a second bridge at the foot of the falls. Both bridges were constructed in honour of two members of the Spring family early in the 20th Century. Cecil Spring Rice was the British ambassador to the USA during the First World War, while Stephen Spring Rice was a senior civil servant. The bridges are of particular interest: the lower is made of vertical stones, not traditional in this area of Cumbria, while the higher has horizontal stones, more in keeping with the dale customs.
This virtual cache is on the second bridge at the base of the falls.
To claim the find please send me the answers to the following questions:
Q1 Please provide a photograph of yourself/GPS/personal item on the second bridge
Q2 According to the third line of the plaque on the second bridge, what is Cecil Rice remembered for?
Placed with kind permission from the National Trust Ullswater Team
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
The Little Bridges series was started by Stanthews in 2009 to highlight small footbridges in remote parts of Wiltshire. Since then the series has been expanded by others all over the country and starting to spread fast. There is a stats listing run by Billiethecat, so you can see how many Little Bridges you have found, you can find it here:- https://littlebridgesseries.wordpress.com/ . If you would like to add to the series, please contact Stan on stanthews@aol.com and he will give you a number for your bridge, to qualify, the bridge must be a foot bridge too small for vehicles, please make sure your title exactly matches “Little Bridges # xxxx then the name” including spaces so it will get picked up and added to stats list.