The Lake District is England's only real mountain country: sixteen lakes and more than 200 peaks squeezed into 900 square miles of the north-western corner of the country. It is small by the standards of the Alps or the Rockies — you can drive across it in under an hour — and tame compared to the Scottish Highlands, but the compression is part of the appeal. Valleys open onto lakes, fells rise straight out of the water, stone walls climb impossibly steep pastures, and the whole landscape has a worn, glaciated beauty that has been attracting walkers and writers for more than two centuries.
It was the Lake Poets — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey — who first made the region fashionable in the early 19th century. Wordsworth's cottage at Grasmere and his later house at Rydal Mount are both open to visitors, and they remain among the most visited literary sites in Britain. Beatrix Potter lived and wrote here too; Hill Top, her farmhouse near Hawkshead, is preserved much as she left it. But the real draw is the walking, which ranges from easy lakeshore strolls to the full round of the 214 "Wainwrights" — the fells listed in Alfred Wainwright's classic seven-volume pictorial guide, which generations of British hillwalkers have worked their way through.
The main bases are Keswick in the north, on the shore of Derwentwater and surrounded by the Skiddaw, Blencathra, and Borrowdale fells; Ambleside and Windermere in the south, on the bigger, busier lake of the same name; and Coniston, quieter, with the Old Man of Coniston rising behind it. Scafell Pike, the highest point in England at 978 metres, is a serious half-day walk from Wasdale Head — the remotest and arguably the most spectacular valley in the district. Helvellyn, with its knife-edge Striding Edge ridge, is the classic day out for anyone looking for a taste of proper British mountain walking.
The region is popular, and on a sunny summer Saturday the honeypots (Windermere, Ambleside, Bowness) are genuinely crowded. The quieter valleys — Ennerdale, Buttermere, Duddon, Longsleddale — are a short drive away and see a fraction of the traffic. Come in autumn for the colours, or in winter when the high fells hold snow and the inns light their fires. Just bring good waterproofs: the Lake District is one of the wettest places in England, and the clouds rarely take a day off.
