It is near the A5086 road, 2.5 miles (4 km) southwest of Cockermouth and is located just outside the Lake District National Park.

[1] Eaglesfield lay in the early Middle Ages within the British kingdom of Rheged, and the first element of the name is perhaps derived from the Brythonic 'eccles' "church" (cognate with Welsh 'eglwys' 'church').

The meaning would be 'open land near a British church' - something that the Anglian settlers would have seen as they "arrived and settled some two miles away down below at Brigham.

Eaglesfield was the probable birthplace of Robert de Eglesfield (c.1295–1349), founder of the Queen's College, Oxford.

Moorland Close, Eaglesfield, was the birthplace of Fletcher Christian, master's mate aboard HMS Bounty.