Stainmore is a remote geographic area in the Pennines on the border of Cumbria, County Durham and North Yorkshire.

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.

[7] 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 appears as Stanmore in the Charter Rolls for the reign of Henry II, and as Staynmor in the Placita de Quo Warranto of 1292.

[9] According to Roger of Wendover, it was where Eric Bloodaxe (d. 954), recently expelled from York, was betrayed and killed, an event which some historians believe to have taken place in a great battle.