For a country famous for rain, the UK isn’t doing very well at protecting its water. Step forward some of the Lake District’s leading chefs…

Lake Windermere is one of the UK’s most celebrated bodies of water. It’s the heart of the beautiful Lake District – I mean, the clue’s in the name, right? It’s one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations generating some £750m a year in tourism revenue.

And it’s dying.

Thanks to some really rather obnoxious people and policies – we try to remain politically neutral but, I mean, really? – Windermere has been on the wrong end of too much sewage discharge, both treated and untreated, causing potentially catastrophic harm to the area’s wildlife, local population, and that tourism revenue. According to scientists and ecologists, all such “nutrient” inputs must be removed in order to preserve the lake for future generations. And that’s where Save Windermere comes in.

And joining that campaign in September are some of the region’s most acclaimed chefs, who’ll be cooking to raise funds to, well, save Windermere.

The Lake District is the highest concentration of Michelin-starred chefs outside of London. Chefs4SaveWindermere will see the area’s top chefs join forces to cook seasonal, sustainable and locally sourced dinners from September 11-16, in a specially constructed, 100-seater tent overlooking the Lake.

Spearheaded by Barney Cunliffe of Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, the Chefs4SaveWindermere line-up features the likes of Paul Burgalières, executive chef of Simon Rogan’s multiply starred restaurants, Ryan Blackburn from Michelin-starred The Old Stamp House, Ollie Bridgwater from SOURCE at Gilpin Hotel, Richard Swale of Allium, and Aakash Ohol of Gilpin Spice and Tom Westerland of Knipe Grill at Gilpin Lake House.

As Save Windermere founder, Matt Staniek, says, “Save Windermere is incredibly lucky to have such phenomenal culinary talent coming together to raise awareness and funding for the campaign. Save Windermere is fighting for the complete removal of all treated and untreated sewage discharges into our lake, following in the footsteps of Lake Annecy to make Windermere the cleanest lake in Europe.”

For details and booking, take a look at the website right here.