Tour Brantwood and look out over the lake from Ruskin's study window

Ride the steam yacht Gondola on Coniston Water

See the Bluebird story and Ruskin's collection at the Ruskin Museum in Coniston

John Ruskin bought Brantwood above Coniston Water in 1871, reportedly without having seen it, and lived there for the rest of his life; the house is now a museum to him. On the lake below, the steam yacht Gondola, launched in 1859 for the Furness Railway's passengers and rebuilt by the National Trust, still runs under steam.

Coniston: Ruskin's Brantwood and the Steam Yacht Gondola

Windermere and Hawkshead

Liverpool

Nine nights in a loop from Liverpool: the bitterns of Leighton Moss, Windermere, Coniston and Hill Top, Catbells above Derwentwater, the Ullswater steamers, then Wensleydale cheese and Malham Cove in the Dales.

The Lakes and the Dales from Liverpool

Coniston

Ten nights through the Lake District from Windermere to Kendal: Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter, Helvellyn by Striding Edge, Catbells and Buttermere, Scafell Pike above Wast Water, then Ruskin's Brantwood and the Old Man of Coniston.

The Lake District: Windermere, Wasdale and Coniston

Walk up past the old copper and slate workings on the north-east slopes

Reach the summit cairn above Coniston Water

Look down into the Coppermines valley behind the fell

The Old Man rises straight out of Coniston village to 802 metres, with well-marked paths that make it a popular climb. Its north-east slopes are a working record of eight hundred years of copper and slate mining, and the abandoned levels, quarries and spoil tips are as much the point of the walk as the summit. The rock changes as you go: volcanic tuffs across the top, sandstones on the southern slopes.

The Old Man of Coniston: Copper, Slate and a Summit Over the Lake

Go through Hill Top at Near Sawrey, kept as Beatrix Potter left it

Browse Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop in William Heelis's old solicitor's office in Hawkshead

Walk the alleys of Hawkshead and see the grammar school Wordsworth attended

Walk round Esthwaite Water between the two villages

Beatrix Potter owned the 17th-century farmhouse of Hill Top at Near Sawrey and left it to the National Trust; it is shown as she herself would have known it, with the garden kept in the style of her illustrations. Two miles north, Hawkshead is a village of whitewashed alleys where Wordsworth went to grammar school, and her husband William Heelis's old solicitor's office, the Beatrix Potter Gallery until 2022, is now Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop.

Hawkshead and Hill Top: Beatrix Potter's Farm

Take a cruise on Windermere, the largest lake in England

Kayak or paddleboard on the lake from Bowness

Climb Orrest Head above Windermere, the first fell Wainwright ever climbed, for the view that started him

Work out why Windermere is not really a mere, despite its name

Windermere is the largest lake in England by length, area and volume — 10.5 miles from Lakeside, 11.23 if you count from Newby Bridge, a mile across at its widest and 64 metres deep. It was Winander Mere until at least the 19th century, and despite the 'mere' it is not one: a mere is broad and shallow, and Windermere is deep enough to have a thermocline. Above the town of Windermere is Orrest Head, the first fell Alfred Wainwright ever climbed — 'our first ascent in Lakeland, our first sight of mountains in tumultuous array across glittering waters, our awakening to beauty.'

Windermere: England's Longest Lake

Walk the earthworks of the Roman fort at Waterhead

See Bridge House standing over Stock Ghyll

Walk up to Stock Ghyll Force behind the town

Catch a launch down Windermere from Waterhead pier

Ambleside stands at the head of Windermere, and on the flat ground at Waterhead the Romans built a fort, usually called Galava, first founded around AD 80 and rebuilt in stone under Hadrian, whose outlines are still visible in the grass by the lake. In the town, Bridge House stands over Stock Ghyll, built more than three hundred years ago, probably as a summer house and apple store for Ambleside Hall, and the beck drops through the woods behind in a series of falls.

Ambleside and the Roman Fort at Waterhead

Cross Hardknott Pass at its one-in-three gradient by car or bike, not in a motorhome; leave the van in Eskdale or Little Langdale

Walk round Mediobogdum and find its parade ground and bath house

Carry on over Wrynose Pass to the Three Shire Stone

Stop at the top for the view down Eskdale to the sea

The single-track road from Eskdale over Hardknott and Wrynose to Little Langdale is the most direct route across the Lake District and shares the title of steepest road in England with Rosedale Chimney Bank, at one in three. On the shoulder of Hardknott the Romans built Mediobogdum, on the road between Galava at Ambleside and Glannoventa at Ravenglass; its walls stand above the valley, with a bath house below that has a rare circular sweating room, and a levelled parade ground above that is reckoned the finest surviving in England.

Hardknott and Wrynose: England's Joint-Steepest Road

Go through Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum

Walk past Rydal Mount to Dora's Field and Rydal church

Find Wordsworth's grave in St Oswald's churchyard

Buy a slab of Grasmere gingerbread by the churchyard gate

William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere from December 1799 to May 1808 — 'plain living, but high thinking' — and Thomas De Quincey took the house after them. The family later moved to Rydal Mount down the valley, where Wordsworth lived until his death — the Wordsworth Trust bought it in 2026 and it is closed for conservation work; he is buried in Grasmere churchyard, and the gingerbread shop by the churchyard gate sells the gingerbread the village is known for.

Grasmere and Rydal: Wordsworth's Two Houses

Walk the circuit of Buttermere, about four and a half miles

Drive or ride the Honister Pass, one in four at its steepest

Go underground on a tour of Honister slate mine

Walk through the rock tunnel on the lake path under Hassness

The B5289 crosses Honister Pass at 356m between Seatoller in Borrowdale and Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere, with gradients of up to one in four and a working slate mine at the summit. Buttermere itself is a small lake ringed by fells with a level path all the way round.