Ambleside town
Guest Houses & B&Bs in Ambleside
Ten of the town's best-regarded independents, from a 350-year-old listed house by the waterwheel to a country house under Loughrigg.
Read the guideAmbleside sits at the head of Windermere where five valleys meet — the most central base in the national park, and a proper working town rather than a resort. It is small enough to walk end to end in ten minutes, well enough supplied to handle a whole week, and close enough to Langdale, Grasmere and the lake to make almost any day out short. These guides cover the places our guests stay here.
Quick Facts
Schematic — not to scale. Our Ambleside pickup is outside the public library in the middle of town.
Ambleside has more independent guest houses per street than anywhere in the Lakes — and almost all are a short walk from our library pickup.
Ambleside town
Ten of the town's best-regarded independents, from a 350-year-old listed house by the waterwheel to a country house under Loughrigg.
Read the guideTowards Hawkshead, off the B5286
A former hunting lodge on the old Wray Castle estate — where Beatrix Potter first stayed in the Lakes, aged sixteen.
Waterhead, on the lake
A pub with rooms at the head of Windermere, beer garden to the shingle and the cruise piers two minutes away.
Two miles south of Ambleside
A classic country house hotel in seven acres, between two towns with Troutbeck valley up the hill behind.
Elterwater, Great Langdale
Sixteen suites in the woods on the Langdale Estate, with spa access included. No pets on the estate.
Hillside above Windermere
A twelve-room Georgian-Gothic house in sixty-seven acres of gardens, orchards and spring-fed water gardens.
Waterhead, facing the piers
Directly opposite the cruise piers at the head of Windermere, with the Roman fort at Galava in the field alongside.
Middle of Ambleside
A slate inn that has put travellers up for three centuries — and our Ambleside pickup is a short walk away.
Middle of Ambleside
Named for the Victorian temperance movement the railway tourists brought — now, cheerfully, a pub with rooms.
Edge of Ambleside
A Regency country house five minutes from the town centre — genuinely dog-friendly, with the lake 400 metres away.
Towards Hawkshead
130 acres of woodland on a former estate, a mile from Skelwith Force and on the right side for Beatrix Potter country.
Elterwater, Great Langdale
Lodges and apartments on a former gunpowder works, at the mouth of the finest valley in England. No pets on the estate.
The grand sweep: ten lakes, the high passes between them, and an Ullswater Steamers cruise exclusive to this tour. If a celebration stay deserves one great day out, this is it.
See dates & bookCollected at the door, your party only, the day shaped to you — literary landscapes, hidden valleys, or simply the most beautiful roads we know. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard in our vehicle crates.
Enquire about a private dayDove Cottage at Grasmere — entry included as standard — and the valleys that made the poems, with Dora's Field carpeted gold in daffodil season. The right literary day for this most Georgian of addresses.
See dates & bookAcross the lake to Hill Top and Near Sawrey, with our illustration-matching walk through the village lanes — back for a long lakeside lunch.
See dates & bookThe afternoon version crosses the lake by boat rather than by road — worth choosing if you'd like the crossing itself to be part of the day.
See dates & bookA slow hall morning, then eight lakes and their valleys at a seven-seat pace — the most civilised way to spend a Lakeland afternoon.
See dates & bookThe same eight lakes as the afternoon tour, run the opposite way round in the morning — ideal if you'd rather keep your afternoon free for the lawns.
See dates & bookA full literary day east to Haworth — the Parsonage, the cobbled village, and the moors that gave Wuthering Heights its weather, newly magnetic with the recent film. Oxenholme pickup available.
See dates & bookInto the Dales for Grassington's "Darrowby", the Wensleydale Creamery, Kilnsey Crag and Bolton Abbey — filming locations brought to life around you with live scene technology.
See dates & book