A UNESCO World Heritage Site, located in Cumbria in northwest England, the English Lake District is a mountainous area, whose valleys have been modelled by glaciers in the Ice Age and subsequently shaped by an agro-pastoral land-use system characterized by fields enclosed by walls. The combined work of nature and human activity has produced a harmonious landscape in which the mountains are mirrored in the lakes. Grand houses, gardens and parks have been purposely created to enhance the landscape’s beauty. This landscape was greatly appreciated from the 18th century onwards by the Picturesque and later Romantic movements, which celebrated it in paintings, drawings poems and literature. It also inspired an awareness of the importance of beautiful landscapes and triggered early efforts to preserve them. With over a dozen lakes and two hundred summits to choose from - the opportunities for touring are limitless.

A second World Heritage Site resides in the north of Cumbria - the great Roman Wall of Hadrian - The 118-km-long Hadrian’s Wall was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, at the northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia and spans 73 miles from the Solway Coast to the mouth of the River Tyne. The remains of Hadrian's wall today consists of vestiges of built walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers and civilian settlements. It is a striking example of the organization of a military zone. Stretching across dominantly striking countryside, the  extensive remnants, Roman roads, museums and visitor centres serve to illuminate to the visitor the defensive techniques and geopolitical strategies of ancient Rome.

An agro-pastoral landscape endows Cumbria with market towns of remarkable character. Two are so distinct they are categorised as 'Gem Towns', deemed to be "particularly splendid and precious" (there are only 51  Gem Towns in total, throughout the British Isles).

Cumbria also has an abundance of pre-historic sites and stone circles spanning the entire breadth of the county. Our land was also a place of extensive Viking migration from the 9th Century  onward - unquestionably the strongest cultural legacy surviving into the 21st Century - Myth abounds... but few are they who can explain it!