Kentmere is a valley, village and civil parish in the Lake District National Park, a few miles from Kendal in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. Historically in Westmorland, at the 2011 census Kentmere had a population of 159. Geography The narrow valley spans about in length and begins with a bowl of hills known as the Kentmere Round; a horseshoe of high fells which surrounds Kentmere Reservoir. The River Kent, which gives Kendal its name, begins from Hall Cove, a corrie at the head of the valley, before flowing through the reservoir. Access to this part of the valley is available via the Roman High Street, over Nan Bield Pass, from Troutbeck over Garburn Pass (Bridleway only. No motor vehicles), or along an old bridleway up from the village. The valley is sandwiched between Troutbeck on the west side and Longsleddale on the east. It can be reached by road only by travelling through the village of Staveley, which sits at its mouth where the river meets the Gowan Beck coming in from Ings. A walk described by Wainwright in his Far Eastern Fells series as the Kentmere Round involves an all-inclusive round trip of . In the past there were drove roads up over the horseshoe in the north to the village of Mardale which is now under the water of the Haweswater Reservoir. In the past it was a tradition of the valley's inhabitants to travel from Kentmere to Mardale village church as part of the Easter Sunday celebrations. The River Kent begins above the reservoir in the heights of Bleathwaite Crag. It collects beneath Kentmere Common in the reservoir which was built in 1848 to control the flow of water to the lower pastures. Lingmell Gill also feeds into the reservoir. Beside the reservoir sits a disused quarry and a cottage formerly used for maintenance of the river. The river opens out into a transitory lake called Kentmere Tarn just south of the confluence with Hall Gill. The lake has at times in the past completely disappeared into marshland and in 1840 it was purposely drained to provide reclaimed farm land, but in the past 100 years the "mere" has reappeared again. It is currently 1 mile in length. An archaeological excavation there uncovered an 'extended' log boat dated to c. 1300 AD (D.M. Wilson, A Medieval Boat from Kentmere, Westmorland, in Medieval Archaeology (1966)