A HEART-SHAPED lake in one of the UK’s most loved beauty spots is set to become an underground attraction.
Located in the Lake District, Elterwater Quarry will be getting a new ‘Cavern Explorer’ experience.
As part of the attraction, several steel staircases and platforms will be installed across the quarry’s cavern.
The ziplines will then take visitors from one platform to another.
The experience is said to allow visitors to see parts of the cavern that were previously inaccessible.
Other plans for the attraction include ‘The Quarryman’s Viewpoint’, which will offer visitors a place to look out across the Lake District.
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There will be a natural history trail, venturing through parts of the nearby countryside as well, and a visitor centre with information boards.
Proposals were first submitted two years ago by Burlington Slate, which owns Elterwater slate mine and Zip World.
In the application, the mine said: “The proposed experience at Elterwater will provide a blend of heritage-based adventure through the caverns and offer a unique immersive experience within an underground mine that dates back to the middle of the 19th century.”
However, the first proposals were rejected.
A year later they were resubmitted and approved.
The proposed park isn’t without its controversy though as campaign group Friends of the Lake District has attempted to stop the project.
The group claimed that the planning permission has been wrongly granted and that the new experience would “take us a step closer to a Lake District of noise, chaos and degraded landscapes”.
However, this month, judgement from a judicial review was published and ruled in favour of the Lake District National Authority – meaning that the zipline was still allowed to go ahead.
Michael Hill, CEO of Friends of the Lake District said: “This ruling is a setback for the Cumbrian landscape, but in our 90 years’ history Friends of the Lake District has seen many of those.
“We remain unbowed in our determination to campaign for a Lake District that is tranquil, rich in cultural heritage and environmentally healthy and for protections in law for this and other National Parks to be maintained and strengthened.”
The International Council on Monuments and Sites – which is an advisory board to UNESCO – has also commented that they are opposed to the planned zipline.
The council explained that the zipline “would transform the quarry or part of it into a theme park and would trivialise the experience of an important aspect of the Lake District’s heritage”.
The ultimate worry is that the attraction could lead the Lake District losing its UNESCO World Heritage Site status, which is what happened to the Liverpool Docks in 2021.
The lake itself reveals a heart shape when the water levels drop, also exposing the 500million-year-old rock.
The site of the new attraction is a 40-minute drive from Windermere and an opening date is yet to be revealed.
I visited the UK’s biggest underground ‘theme park’ in caves – it’s twice the size of St Paul’s
TRAVEL writer Catherine Lofthouse recently visited one of Zip World’s other locations – here are he thoughts.
Zip World Llechwedd in North Wales is a bit different from your average theme park – and not just because of its location.
This vast cavern is twice the size of St Paul’s Cathedral and although there are no rollercoasters, it’s still crammed with exciting activities from an 18-hole underground crazy golf course and an adventure course that relies on wires, rope bridges and tightropes to a mega zipline above the quarry.
There’s even a deep mining tour that uncovers an underground lake at 500ft below which relies on a cable railway to get back to the surface.
My boys were most excited for Bounce Below, though – a sprawling and cavernous trampoline park which features nets set at different levels for adventurers young and old to explore.
You need to arrive about half an hour before your time slot to get checked in, but that gives you plenty of time to discover the site on the surface before you venture inside the mountain
The boys had an absolute blast underground, exploring all the different levels of nets and the twisty slides that connect them.
Obviously the caves are a bit cold and damp, so you need to wear warm clothes and sensible shoes, preferably not your Sunday best.
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