Places to explore near Windermere

A lakeside museum of historic steamers and boats in a striking modern building on the Windermere shore.

1.4 km SW

A Bowness attraction bringing Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck to life in walk-through recreations of the tales.

1.8 km SW

Lakeside resort where the Windermere steamers dock, its bustling front backed by galleries, tearooms and the World of Beatrix Potter.

1.9 km SW · Cumbria

Luxury country-house hotel dining between Windermere and Kendal.

2.9 km S

England's longest lake, a ribbon of water threaded with steamers and wooded islands between Ambleside and Newby Bridge.

3.1 km SW

A National Trust time-capsule yeoman's farmhouse in Troutbeck, kept by one family for four centuries with its carved oak and books intact.

3.5 km N

Strung along a hillside lane above its valley, a village of listed 17th-century farmhouses, old wells and the National Trust's Townend.

4.2 km N · Cumbria

Farming hamlet between Hawkshead and the Windermere ferry, home to Beatrix Potter's Hill Top and the Tower Bank Arms she drew.

5.1 km SW · Cumbria

Beatrix Potter's farmhouse and cottage garden.

5.2 km SW

A National Trust gallery in Hawkshead's old solicitor's office showing Beatrix Potter's original book illustrations.

5.9 km W

Whitewashed cottages, cobbled squares and stone archways in a car-free centre, with Wordsworth's old grammar school and a Beatrix Potter gallery.

6 km W · Cumbria

A 70-foot two-stage fall in wooded ravine a short walk behind Ambleside, reached by an easy railed path.

6.5 km NW

Slate-built town at the head of Windermere, its narrow streets full of outdoor shops, cafes and the tiny Bridge House straddling Stock Beck.

6.6 km NW · Cumbria

A tiny 17th-century two-room cottage built out over Stock Beck in the middle of Ambleside, now a National Trust icon.

7 km NW

Traditional Lake District village inn named by olive among the best country pubs.

7.1 km SW

A much-loved beauty spot near Coniston, an artificial tarn among wooded knolls with the Coniston fells rising beyond.

8.2 km W

A short, powerful fall where the combined Brathay and Langdale Beck force through the rocks at Skelwith Bridge.

8.5 km NW

A string of cascades tumbling down Glen Mary from Tarn Hows towards Yew Tree Tarn, an easy family walk.

8.7 km W

A pretty fall in the grounds of Rydal Hall, framed by a 17th-century viewing house said to be England's oldest.

9 km NW

A hillside beside Rydal church that Wordsworth planted with daffodils in memory of his daughter Dora, gold every spring.

9 km NW

A working forest between Coniston and Hawkshead threaded with walking and cycling trails and nearly a hundred outdoor sculptures.

9 km SW

William Wordsworth's home for his last 37 years, with the garden he laid out.

9 km NW

Tiny hamlet between Grasmere and Ambleside, gathered around Rydal Mount, Dora's Field and the wooded path to Rydal Cave.

9 km NW · Cumbria

A quarry mouth above Rydal Water big enough to swallow a house, its floor pool crossed on stepping stones — the void left by Loughrigg's slate men.

9.1 km NW

Reedy tarn and slate village below Langdale.

9.1 km NW

Low fell with sublime Grasmere and Rydal views.

9.2 km NW

The smallest of the Langdale lakes, its reedy bays giving views to the Langdale Pikes above Elterwater village.

9.3 km NW

Between Grasmere and Ambleside, this small lake sits close to Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth spent his later years.

9.3 km NW

A steep, shapely Kentmere fell with a cluster of tall stone cairns on top, met by most walkers on the Kentmere Horseshoe

9.4 km N

Remote 16th-century inn near the top of the Kirkstone Pass, one of the highest pubs in England, above Ambleside.

9.5 km N

A wooded 40-foot fall in several stages on the Brathay in Little Langdale, one of the more easily reached falls.

9.7 km NW

The quieter of the two Langdale valleys, a green trough of old farms and slate byways leading to Blea Tarn and the passes.

9.7 km NW

The highest road pass in the Lakes open to traffic, climbing from Ullswater past England's third-highest inn.

9.8 km N

A grassy shelf path above Grasmere with the classic postcard view down the lake to the village and the Vale of Grasmere.

9.8 km NW

A flooded slate quarry whose arched caverns and 150-foot walls read as a skull in reflection — famous on camera, and strictly for looking into.

10 km W

A little rocky top handing you a big Windermere view for little effort.

10.4 km S

Langdale village around a green and the Britannia Inn, where a riverside path runs down to Elter Water and Skelwith Force.

10.4 km NW · Cumbria

A restored Victorian steam yacht cruising Coniston Water from the pier, calling at Brantwood and Monk Coniston.

10.5 km W

The main chamber of the Little Langdale slate workings, forty feet high and lit by a window of daylight — reached through a tunnel that wants a torch.

10.6 km W

Wordsworth's lake and village, where the poet lies in the churchyard and Dove Cottage stands close by the shore.

10.7 km NW

Grey slate village under the Old Man, once a copper-mining hub, now the base for Ruskin's Brantwood and the Steam Yacht Gondola.

10.8 km W · Cumbria

Where Donald Campbell died chasing the water speed record, and the lake Arthur Ransome remade as Swallows and Amazons country.

10.9 km W

William and Dorothy Wordsworth's cramped Grasmere home from 1799 to 1808, where he wrote his greatest poetry, now a writer's-house museum.

10.9 km NW

Coniston's village museum of Ruskin, copper mining, lace and Donald Campbell, home to the restored Bluebird K7.

11 km W

The last working Lake District bobbin mill, an 1835 English Heritage site near Finsthwaite where bobbins are still turned on the old machinery.

11.2 km S

Wordsworth's beloved village beside its lake, home to Dove Cottage, St Oswald's churchyard and the gingerbread shop by the church gate.

11.5 km NW · Cumbria

Lake District country-house hotel dining rooted in foraged and kitchen-garden produce near Grasmere.

11.6 km NW

A relaxed National Trust house above Grasmere, once a Wordsworth home and later Canon Rawnsley's, with lake views and open fires.

11.9 km NW

A wild upland valley above Coniston strewn with the ruins and spoil of centuries of copper mining beneath the Old Man.

12.5 km W

A Coniston fell honeycombed with old copper and slate workings, its slopes scarred by centuries of mining

12.6 km W

Wainwright's own invention: St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay through three national parks.

12.6 km NW · North Yorkshire & Cumbria

Broad far-eastern fell on a Roman road.

12.8 km N

A weathered five-arched stone bridge of 1651 over the River Leven at Windermere's southern outflow.

13 km S

Set between Great and Little Langdale, its reeds and pines frame a celebrated view of the Langdale Pikes.

13.2 km NW

Medieval tower house with limestone rock garden.

13.4 km SE

The dramatic glaciated valley beneath the Langdale Pikes, the classic base for Lakeland walking and climbing.

13.5 km NW

Little fell with a famous rock silhouette.

13.7 km NW

Craggy former mining peak above Coniston Water.

13.9 km W

A medieval pele tower with the National Trust's largest limestone rock garden and a national fern collection.

13.9 km SE

Head of the classic Fairfield Horseshoe.

14.1 km NW

A narrow high pass linking the Duddon and Little Langdale valleys, meeting Hardknott at the Three Shire Stone.

14.2 km W

A hidden 60-foot fall dropping into a rocky chasm above the Old Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale.

14.5 km NW

A riverside museum at Backbarrow with 30,000 exhibits of classic cars, bikes and the Campbell Bluebird story.

14.5 km S

A ladder of cascades climbing the fellside from the Langdale road up to Stickle Tarn below Pavey Ark.

14.6 km NW

The boot-worn Hikers Bar at the head of Langdale, an old cow byre serving Cumbrian ale beneath the Langdale Pikes.

14.6 km NW

Elizabethan hall with world-famous topiary garden.

15.9 km SE

England's last golden eagle held on at this remote eastern Lakeland reservoir, which drowned the village of Mardale for Manchester.

16.8 km NE

Rippled ridge with the notorious Bad Step.

17.4 km W

Famous knife-edge arete to a lofty summit.

17.8 km NW

Instantly recognised skyline above Great Langdale.

17.8 km W

Little limestone hills, flowery woods and the huge tidal sands of Morecambe Bay, all packed into a small friendly corner

18.2 km S

Shapely central fell crowning Langdale's head.

18.4 km NW

Heritage passenger boats plying Ullswater between Glenridding, Howtown and Pooley Bridge, one of them over 150 years old.

18.4 km N

England's steepest road, hairpinning out of Eskdale at 1 in 3 past a Roman fort with huge fell views.

19 km W

A stone shelter of 1846 on the limestone top above Grange, with a rooftop viewing platform sweeping from the Langdales to Morecambe Bay.

19.3 km S

Spectacular fort ruins commanding the Eskdale pass.

19.3 km W

Limestone country of dry-stone walls, field barns, waterfalls and the Three Peaks.

19.8 km E

Dammed and raised to supply Manchester, its forested shores run beneath the long ridge of Helvellyn.

19.9 km NW

Surviving priory church with a distinctive diagonal tower.

20 km S

One of Britain's smallest and most scenic National Hunt courses, set in meadows beside the priory village.

20.1 km S

Simon Rogan's farm-to-table flagship in a Cartmel village on the edge of the Lake District.

20.1 km S

A string of pools and small falls on the beck above Stonethwaite, a much-loved wild-swimming spot known as the Fairy Glen.

20.2 km NW

Handsome village around its priory church and a small racecourse, famous for sticky toffee pudding and the village square's food shops.

20.3 km S · Cumbria

Archetypal Lakeland valley of crags and oakwoods.

20.7 km NW

High beneath Great End near Sty Head, it is reputed to lie among the wettest spots in England.

21.1 km NW

The second largest lake in the Lake District, a curving water in Patterdale where Wordsworth saw the daffodils of his most famous poem.

21.3 km N

The highest point in England, at the head of Wasdale.

21.4 km NW

An open fellside deer park above Aira Force and Ullswater, where Wordsworth's 'host of golden daffodils' still flowers.

21.7 km N

The Lake District's most visited waterfall, plunging 65 feet beneath a Victorian stone bridge in the landscaped glen above Ullswater.

21.9 km N

England's second-highest mountain, the rockier twin of Scafell Pike, cut off from it by the notorious rock step of Broad Stand

21.9 km W

A tall, plunging fall in upper Borrowdale on the walkers' route to Sty Head and the high central fells.

21.9 km NW

Cavendish family estate near Cark with 25 acres of woodland and formal gardens, home to the ancient Great Holker Lime and a summer sunken garden.

21.9 km S

Remote tarn-side hamlet reached by a single lane and a packhorse bridge, National Trust-owned in a hanging valley above Borrowdale.

22.2 km NW · Cumbria

A white staircase of water tumbling off Base Brown above Seathwaite, England's wettest inhabited place.

22.7 km NW

A 100-foot lighthouse-shaped tower to explorer Sir John Barrow on Hoad Hill above Ulverston, with big views over Morecambe Bay.

22.8 km SW

Georgian market town on the Duddon fringe, its handsome square keeping fish slabs, stocks and a chestnut-shaded market cross.

22.8 km SW · Cumbria

Pyramidal peak, emblem of the Lake District.

23.2 km NW

An enormous house-sized boulder balanced in Borrowdale, climbed by a wooden staircase to its top.

23.7 km NW

The last working slate mine in England, high on Honister Pass, with underground tours and a via ferrata across the crags.

23.8 km NW

Ulverston's museum to the comedy duo, in the market town where Stan Laurel was born.

23.9 km SW

Reedbed reserve of bitterns and marsh harriers.

24 km S

Eskdale hamlet on the terminus branch of the Ravenglass railway, with a working corn mill and the path to Stanley Ghyll.

24.1 km W · Cumbria

Cluster of farms at the head of Wast Water beneath Great Gable and Scafell, the birthplace of British rock climbing.

24.2 km NW · Cumbria

One of England's smallest churches, a tiny stone chapel among yews at the head of Wast Water, remembering climbers lost on the fells.

24.4 km NW

Limestone-and-woodland village on the Lancashire edge of the Arnside & Silverdale AONB, ringed by coast and reserves.

24.4 km S · Lancashire

Remote inn beneath Great Gable and Scafell, hung with climbing memorabilia as the birthplace of British mountaineering.

24.6 km NW

Perhaps the most photographed packhorse bridge in the Lakes, framing Derwentwater and Skiddaw from the Watendlath lane.

24.7 km NW

Ullswater inn with lake views and rooms, an olive gastropub pick.

24.7 km N

Borrowdale waterfall spilling through boulders behind the Lodore hotel, made famous by Robert Southey's tumbling poem.

24.8 km NW

A roadside crag above the Watendlath lane that opens suddenly over the length of Derwentwater to the northern fells.

24.9 km NW

One of Wainwright's Outlying Fells of Lakeland.

0.7 km N

The gentlest of the classic long walks — riverside paths along the Wharfe and the Dee from Ilkley to the shore of Windermere.

1.9 km SE · Cumbria, North Yorkshire & West Yorkshire

Bowness's oldest pub, a snug 17th-century warren of flagstones, beams and a barrel-topped bar tucked off the lakefront.

1.9 km SW

Troutbeck's valley church, its east window a glowing Arts and Crafts collaboration by Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and Morris.

4.1 km N