St Michael and All Angels Church

The parish church stands on a small rise above the village and is one of the prettiest spots in Hawkshead. Mostly fifteenth-century with later additions, it has a low square tower, a churchyard full of weathered slate gravestones, and views across the rooftops to the surrounding fells.

The interior is more interesting than the modest exterior suggests, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a set of seventeenth-century painted texts decorating the walls, and several memorial tablets to old Hawkshead families. Open daily in daylight hours, no admission charge.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Wordsworth referred to the church as 'snow-white' on its hill in The Prelude — though the limewash has since been removed, exposing the rough Lakeland stone. The interior preserves rare wall paintings of biblical texts in elaborate Jacobean cartouches, an unusual survival from the seventeenth century.