St Mary

The present church, designed in the Romanesque style by the architect Charles Eaglesfield of Maryport, was built in 1858, replacing a late mediaeval chapel of ease, established by St Bees Abbey and recorded in 1534. A small section of the dog tooth carving over the entrance porch and chancel arch is believed by Pevsner to be Norman in origin: visitors may try to spot the original sections.

A pre-Reformation font is currently used as a plant holder by the main doorway. The church (the southernmost of the three in the parish) and its two graveyards (separated by the narrow Church Lane) is within the pretty village of Ennerdale Bridge, (first stop on the Coast to Coast walk), and lies just inside the Lake District National Park.

The River Ehen which forms part of the western boundary of the National Park flows immediately beside the north wall of the old churchyard (graves dating from 1741 to 1900). The 'new' churchyard, separated from the old by the narrow Church Lane, is to the south. The Rowland Beck runs along the west boundary of the churchyards and just beyond, over a small bridge, is the Fox and Hounds public house popular with locals and tourists alike. Some 300 yards further on is The Gather, a newly built community run shop and tearoom (selling local produce and crafts and serving food and drink throughout the day).

The Lakeland poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge, visited Ennerdale Bridge and talked to the priest about the graves in the old churchyard. It is reputed that this inspired Wordsworth to write his epic poem 'The Brothers' in 1800. Whilst the parish chapel, stood alone in a field 'Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall', has been replaced, it is tempting to speculate that the churchyard wall so evocatively described by Wordsworth is the same as that which now surrounds the attractive church and old churchyard.

William Wordsworth’s description of the landscape near Ennerdale Water remains timeless.