Driving tour of Windermere and the Lake District
If you are lucky enough to be staying in Windermere or Bowness, or simply driving through, you can enjoy a wide range of things to do, and find a superb range of accommodation, hotels, guesthouses and bed and breakfast accommodation to choose from.
Driving around Windermere is essentially a route to be savoured in spring or autumn, when the roads in this, the most popular of the Lake District's sub regions, are least likely to be congested. Start in the town of Windermere , a product of the nineteenth century, its expansion the result of the arrival of the railway, the growth in tourism and the attractions of the area for northern businessmen, who soon populated the town and the shores of the lake with ornate villas and gentlemen's residences.
Things to do near Windermere and Bowness
Beyond Bowness the lake is glimpsed only occasionally through the trees and beyond the country houses, some of them now hotels, but there is a fine view across the lake from Beech Hill. Just beyond here a lane on the left gives an optional detour (on steep and very narrow roads in places) over Cartmel Fell, with the chance to visit the fine, isolated pub on Strawberry Bank, to see the spinning galleries at Hodge Hill and Pool Bank, and to find the isolated chapel of Cartmel Fell, with tremendous views over the sands of Morecambe Bay from the rocky knoll above the chapel.
Towards the southern end of Windermere it is possible to visit another, rather more accessible viewpoint Gummer's How, reached by footpath from the lane above Fell Foot and with a splendid prospect northwards along Windermere and west across the fells and forests of High Furness towards the Coniston valley. At Newby Bridge, take the A590 alongside the River Leven to Backbarrow, with its former iron works, and Haverthwaite, terminus of a steam railway, before turning right onto a series of country lanes heading for Finsthwaite, Low Stott Park, another industrial hamlet noted particularly for its bobbin mill, and Cunsey, where a footpath leads to the early iron smelting site at Cunsey Forge.
Hill Top and Beatrix Potter Sawrey
Eventually the route arrives at Far Sawrey, close to the Windermere ferry; turn left along the B5285 through Near Sawrey, a delightful hamlet sometimes overrun with tourists seeking out Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's former home, and alongside Esthwaite Water, a low-key lake in a sylvan setting, to Hawkshead.
Hawkshead and Coniston
This is an attractive large village, a market centre in medieval times, with timber framed houses, Wordsworth's grammar school next to the church and, just to the north, Hawkshead Court House, formerly a grange belonging to Furness Abbey. Turn left, still on the B5285, just before the Court House and make for Coniston. A road on the right at Hawkshead Hill can profitably be followed since it rises slowly to arrive at Tarn Hows, that celebrated viewpoint for the Langdale Pikes and centre for gentle walks around the (manmade) tarn.
Turn left again just before Coniston is reached, to follow a road which runs close to Coniston Water as far as Brantwood, for long the home of John Ruskin and now open to the public. A little further south are pleasant car parks in the woods, with.a very good view across the lake to the Coniston Fells. Return to the head of the lake and turn left into Coniston, a rather plain slate grey village but the centre for excursions to Coppermines Valley, a scene of industrial devastation but tremendous interest, to the Walna Scar Road, a prehistoric track across Little Arrow Moor to Seathwaite in Dunnerdale, and especially to the Old Man of Coniston and the rest of the Coniston Fells.
Things to do in Coniston
If you plan to stay in Coniston for a while, take a boat trip out onto the famous Coniston Water, or enjoy a walking tour around the beautiful lakeside fells, or choose from a range of great pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels that are situated in town.
From Coniston the A593 leads north, past the entrance to the scenic Tilberthwaite valley and High Yewdale, a picturesque group of farm buildings with a fine spinning gallery, to the awkward, steep turn into the Little Langdale road. These initial difficulties are soon forgotten, however, as the view opens out and the hamlet of Little Langdale itself is reached.
Leave the car here and follow a lane, then a footpath, down to Slater Bridge, a quite magnificent slate-slab bridge over the River Brathay just below Little Langdale Tarn. The bridge, made by workers at the slate quarries whose waste heaps still disfigure the slopes of nearby Wetherlam, was probably also used by Lanty Slee, a notorious whisky smuggler whose illicit stills were located on the mountain. The tarn forms the foreground in views from here of the Wrynose Pass, followed by the Romans and now by the narrow road which twists and turns on its way to Dunnerdale and, via the even trickier Hardknott Pass, to Eskdale.
An alternative to Wrynose is to take the equally narrow but less steep road on the right just before Fell Foot Farm, with its strange mound, reputedly a Scandinavian mount, is reached. This gated road leads over to Great Langdale; just beyond the gate there is a car park on the right and it is worth turning in here, then strolling down to the shores of Blea Tarn, attractive in its own right and also effective as a foreground for the Langdale Pikes, which become dominant features in the landscape here.
The road drops down into Great Langdale, a valley of dramatic contrasts, with the flat floor of the dale around the famous climbers' pubs such as the Old Dungeon Ghyll backed by scree and crags rising almost sheer to the summit regions of the Langdale Pikes. At the head of the dale, which here splits into two Oxendale and Mickleden is Bowfell, a superb mountain usually climbed by the track which starts at Stool End Farm and ascends The Band, the prominent spur dividing Oxendale from Mickleden.
New Dungeon Ghyll
At New Dungeon Ghyll, where there is a very large car park, the path ascending by the side of Mill Gill (also known, romantically but inaccurately, as Stickle Ghyll) can be taken as far as Stickle Tarn. The tarn, artificially dammed to provide a water supply for the gunpowder works in Elterwater, occupies virtually the whole of a vast bowl at the foot of the dark grey crags of Pavey Ark with, to the left, the slopes of Harrison Stickle, the highest of the Langdale Pikes.
Back in the valley, the road winds through Chapel Stile and past Elterwater, a reedfringed lake below a pleasant common, before reaching Skelwith Bridge, near the attractive series of rapids known as Skelwith Force. The main Ambleside road now passes through Clappersgate, where Langdale slate used to be loaded onto barges and sent down Windermere, and close to the site in Borrans Field of Galava, Ambleside's Roman fort. Windermere town is now only a few minutes' drive away, past the pier at Waterhead, the fringes of Lake Windermere and the National Park Centre at Brockhole.
Driving around Windermere is essentially a route to be savoured in spring or autumn, when the roads in this, the most popular of the Lake District's sub regions, are least likely to be congested. Start in the town of Windermere , a product of the nineteenth century, its expansion the result of the arrival of the railway, the growth in tourism and the attractions of the area for northern businessmen, who soon populated the town and the shores of the lake with ornate villas and gentlemen's residences.
Things to do near Windermere and Bowness
Beyond Bowness the lake is glimpsed only occasionally through the trees and beyond the country houses, some of them now hotels, but there is a fine view across the lake from Beech Hill. Just beyond here a lane on the left gives an optional detour (on steep and very narrow roads in places) over Cartmel Fell, with the chance to visit the fine, isolated pub on Strawberry Bank, to see the spinning galleries at Hodge Hill and Pool Bank, and to find the isolated chapel of Cartmel Fell, with tremendous views over the sands of Morecambe Bay from the rocky knoll above the chapel.
Towards the southern end of Windermere it is possible to visit another, rather more accessible viewpoint Gummer's How, reached by footpath from the lane above Fell Foot and with a splendid prospect northwards along Windermere and west across the fells and forests of High Furness towards the Coniston valley. At Newby Bridge, take the A590 alongside the River Leven to Backbarrow, with its former iron works, and Haverthwaite, terminus of a steam railway, before turning right onto a series of country lanes heading for Finsthwaite, Low Stott Park, another industrial hamlet noted particularly for its bobbin mill, and Cunsey, where a footpath leads to the early iron smelting site at Cunsey Forge.
Hill Top and Beatrix Potter Sawrey
Eventually the route arrives at Far Sawrey, close to the Windermere ferry; turn left along the B5285 through Near Sawrey, a delightful hamlet sometimes overrun with tourists seeking out Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's former home, and alongside Esthwaite Water, a low-key lake in a sylvan setting, to Hawkshead.
Hawkshead and Coniston
This is an attractive large village, a market centre in medieval times, with timber framed houses, Wordsworth's grammar school next to the church and, just to the north, Hawkshead Court House, formerly a grange belonging to Furness Abbey. Turn left, still on the B5285, just before the Court House and make for Coniston. A road on the right at Hawkshead Hill can profitably be followed since it rises slowly to arrive at Tarn Hows, that celebrated viewpoint for the Langdale Pikes and centre for gentle walks around the (manmade) tarn.
Turn left again just before Coniston is reached, to follow a road which runs close to Coniston Water as far as Brantwood, for long the home of John Ruskin and now open to the public. A little further south are pleasant car parks in the woods, with.a very good view across the lake to the Coniston Fells. Return to the head of the lake and turn left into Coniston, a rather plain slate grey village but the centre for excursions to Coppermines Valley, a scene of industrial devastation but tremendous interest, to the Walna Scar Road, a prehistoric track across Little Arrow Moor to Seathwaite in Dunnerdale, and especially to the Old Man of Coniston and the rest of the Coniston Fells.
Things to do in Coniston
If you plan to stay in Coniston for a while, take a boat trip out onto the famous Coniston Water, or enjoy a walking tour around the beautiful lakeside fells, or choose from a range of great pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels that are situated in town.
From Coniston the A593 leads north, past the entrance to the scenic Tilberthwaite valley and High Yewdale, a picturesque group of farm buildings with a fine spinning gallery, to the awkward, steep turn into the Little Langdale road. These initial difficulties are soon forgotten, however, as the view opens out and the hamlet of Little Langdale itself is reached.
Leave the car here and follow a lane, then a footpath, down to Slater Bridge, a quite magnificent slate-slab bridge over the River Brathay just below Little Langdale Tarn. The bridge, made by workers at the slate quarries whose waste heaps still disfigure the slopes of nearby Wetherlam, was probably also used by Lanty Slee, a notorious whisky smuggler whose illicit stills were located on the mountain. The tarn forms the foreground in views from here of the Wrynose Pass, followed by the Romans and now by the narrow road which twists and turns on its way to Dunnerdale and, via the even trickier Hardknott Pass, to Eskdale.
An alternative to Wrynose is to take the equally narrow but less steep road on the right just before Fell Foot Farm, with its strange mound, reputedly a Scandinavian mount, is reached. This gated road leads over to Great Langdale; just beyond the gate there is a car park on the right and it is worth turning in here, then strolling down to the shores of Blea Tarn, attractive in its own right and also effective as a foreground for the Langdale Pikes, which become dominant features in the landscape here.
The road drops down into Great Langdale, a valley of dramatic contrasts, with the flat floor of the dale around the famous climbers' pubs such as the Old Dungeon Ghyll backed by scree and crags rising almost sheer to the summit regions of the Langdale Pikes. At the head of the dale, which here splits into two Oxendale and Mickleden is Bowfell, a superb mountain usually climbed by the track which starts at Stool End Farm and ascends The Band, the prominent spur dividing Oxendale from Mickleden.
New Dungeon Ghyll
At New Dungeon Ghyll, where there is a very large car park, the path ascending by the side of Mill Gill (also known, romantically but inaccurately, as Stickle Ghyll) can be taken as far as Stickle Tarn. The tarn, artificially dammed to provide a water supply for the gunpowder works in Elterwater, occupies virtually the whole of a vast bowl at the foot of the dark grey crags of Pavey Ark with, to the left, the slopes of Harrison Stickle, the highest of the Langdale Pikes.
Back in the valley, the road winds through Chapel Stile and past Elterwater, a reedfringed lake below a pleasant common, before reaching Skelwith Bridge, near the attractive series of rapids known as Skelwith Force. The main Ambleside road now passes through Clappersgate, where Langdale slate used to be loaded onto barges and sent down Windermere, and close to the site in Borrans Field of Galava, Ambleside's Roman fort. Windermere town is now only a few minutes' drive away, past the pier at Waterhead, the fringes of Lake Windermere and the National Park Centre at Brockhole.
Labels: New Dungeon Ghyll
posted by Windermere Boutique Hotels | 02:03
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