Stainmore

Stainmore is a remote geographic area in the Pennines on the border of Cumbria, County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name is used for a civil parish in the Westmorland and Furness of Cumbria, England, including the villages of North Stainmore and South Stainmore. The parish had a population of 253 in the 2001 census, increasing to 264 at the Census 2011. Stainmore Forest stretches further east into County Durham, towards Bowes.

== Geography == Stainmore is drained by the River Belah to the west and, to the east, the River Balder, Deepdale Beck, and the River Greta. It is crossed by the Roman road from Bowes to Brough, now part of the A66, and formerly by the Stainmore Railway. Each of these lines of communication has made use of the relatively low broad saddle between the higher hills to north and south which is commonly referred to as the Stainmore Gap. The summit of the former railway is around above sea level, though the roads climb to slightly higher elevations. The Gap is coincident with the Stainmore Summit Fault which throws the relatively flat-lying Carboniferous rocks of the area down to the south. It acted as a conduit for Lake District-originated ice to pass eastwards during one or more glacial periods. There are several Regionally Important Geological / Geomorphological Sites (RIGS) in the Stainmore area, and Bowes Moor is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The locality gives its name to the Stainmore Trough, a geological structure originating during the Carboniferous period and which lies between the Alston Block to the north and the Askrigg Block to the south.