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

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

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

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 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

Climb Scafell Pike (978m), England's highest mountain, from Wasdale Head

Stand on the shore of Wast Water, England's deepest lake at 79m, where the Screes fall 600m into the water and a 2007 poll chose the view as Britain's favourite

Have a drink at the Wasdale Head Inn, the birthplace of British rock climbing

Walk to St Olaf's at Wasdale Head, England's smallest parish church

Wasdale holds England's highest mountain and its deepest lake in the same view: Scafell Pike at 978m, and Wast Water at 79m deep, with the Screes falling 600m straight into it. The Wasdale Head Inn at the head of the valley is where British rock climbing began.

Wasdale: Scafell Pike, Wast Water and the Birthplace of Rock Climbing

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 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

Walk up Catbells from the Derwentwater shore

Pick out Bassenthwaite, Skiddaw and Keswick to the north and Borrowdale to the south

Carry on over Hause Gate along the ridge to Maiden Moor

Take the Derwentwater launch from Hawse End back to Keswick

Catbells, only 451m high, is the last fell on the ridge that divides Derwentwater from the Newlands valley, three miles from Keswick. Its shape is so distinctive from Friars' Crag on the far shore that people see it and decide to climb it. Alfred Wainwright called it one of the great favourites, a family fell where grandmothers and infants can climb the heights together, which makes it a classic first fell.

Catbells: The Family Fell Above Derwentwater

Scramble the north ridge from the A5 in the Ogwen valley

Reach Siôn a Siân — Adam and Eve — the two 3m monoliths on the summit

Walk on into the Glyderau above the valley

Start from Ogwen Cottage at the head of Llyn Ogwen

Tryfan stands over the Ogwen valley as a pointed wall of rugged crag, one of the most recognisable mountains in Britain and, at 917.5m, the fifteenth highest in Wales. It is part of the Glyderau, and the usual way up is the north ridge, a continuous scramble starting near the A5 about a mile east of Idwal Cottage. There is no walking route to the top: every way up ends in a scramble.