The Nab

The deer come before the walkers here. The Nab sits on a ridge running north from Rest Dodd, between Bannerdale and Rampsgill, in the middle of the Martindale deer forest. The herd there is the oldest native red deer herd in the country. In the 1950s the fell was fenced off entirely, with barbed wire and barred gates. It is open access land now, but the Dalemain Estate asks walkers to keep away from the deer, to avoid calving time, and to check with the estate office first, as access may be restricted between September and February.

There is no access from the road to the north: the fields below Nab End have no right of way. Instead, the estate suggests two routes. The shorter goes from Dale Head Farm in Martindale on the path towards Angle Tarn, then east behind Buck Crag to the gate at Satura Crag and over Rest Dodd to The Nab, and back the same way. The longer starts at the old church in Martindale, where parking is free, and goes up onto the High Street ridge and round The Knott to Rest Dodd. From Hartsop, near Brothers Water, you can go over Rest Dodd too.

Either way the last stretch drops off Rest Dodd and crosses a boggy plateau of peat hags, some deeper than a person is tall. Keeping to the east side avoids the worst of it.

The summit is broad, grassy and nearly level, with a small cairn. Rest Dodd hides the view south, but you get the Helvellyn range end to end above Angletarn Pikes.

Down in the valley is The Bungalow, a shooting lodge the Earl of Lonsdale built in 1910 for Kaiser Wilhelm II.