It lies entirely within the Lake District National Park. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 438 people, living in 137 households. The 2011 Census showed that the population had declined to 417 residents among 128 households. The valley is currently a tourist location with hotels, guesthouses, holiday cottages, bed and breakfasts, youth hostels and campsites. It caters to lowland visitors as well as hill-walkers. Sometime before 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a major deposit of graphite was discovered near the Seathwaite hamlet in Borrowdale parish. The locals found that it was useful for marking sheep. The graphite was pure and solid, and it could easily be sawed into sticks; the pencil industry was born in nearby Keswick. The graphite find remains unique. In the first of Sir Hugh Walpole's series of four novels "Rogue Herries" about the Herries family, Borrowdale is the site of a fictional house called "Herries", the home of Francis Herries, the protagonist of the novel. Subsequent novels in the series are also largely set in Borrowdale. The valley and its surrounding mountains are described in sympathetic detail. Walpole himself had a house at Brackenburn, Manesty, overlooking Derwent Water from 1924 until his death in 1941. Hazel Bank Country House was the fictional home of Rogue Herries and birthplace of Judith Paris. Walpole was a friend of the Simpson family, who owned Hazel Bank. This is where Walpole found the inspiration for the "Herries Chronicles".