A great many places around Windermere mention Beatrix Potter. Lindeth Howe is the one that can say she owned it. She bought the house in 1915 for her mother, having already stayed here as a guest years before and illustrated two of the tales while doing so. If you have booked a Beatrix Potter tour with us and are staying here, you are sleeping in the story rather than merely near it — and this guide makes the most of that.
Quick Facts
Lindeth Howe was built in 1879 as a summer house for a Manchester mill owner, on an estate then running to twenty-eight acres. It passed to Bruce Canon Vernon Wentworth, a retired Grenadier Guards captain, who let it out to holidaying families — the Potters among them. Between 1902 and 1913 Beatrix stayed here repeatedly, and it was at Lindeth Howe that she illustrated The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes and The Tale of Pigling Bland. In 1915 she bought the house outright for her mother, who lived here until her death; it was sold on in 1933.
What makes this worth more than a plaque is that the hotel has kept the evidence. There are photographic plates taken by her father Rupert Potter, a serious amateur photographer whose images of the family and the house survive, and the hotel's own logo reproduces Beatrix's handwriting from when she inscribed the name of the house. A timeline near reception lays the whole thing out. Give it ten minutes before you go anywhere.
The obvious pairing, and it is a good one. Hill Top at Near Sawrey — the working farm she bought in 1905 and kept almost exactly as she left it — is across the water, and the illustrations she drew there match the lanes and rooms with startling precision. Hawkshead has the Beatrix Potter Gallery in what were her husband's solicitor's offices. And Wray Castle, further up the western shore, is where a sixteen-year-old Beatrix first came to the Lake District on a family holiday — the trip that began all of it.
Our Beatrix Potter tours cover this ground with a guide who knows which illustration matches which gate. Staying at Lindeth Howe, you get to come home to a house she owned afterwards, which is a rather good way round to do it.
Worth flagging, because it catches people out at the taxi rank: Lindeth Howe and Lindeth Fell are different hotels, both on the hillside south of Bowness, roughly a mile apart. Lindeth Howe is on Longtail Hill; Lindeth Fell is on Lyth Valley Road. If you are giving an address to a driver, use the road name rather than the hotel name.
Bowness is about half an hour on foot downhill through pleasant lanes, or five minutes by car. The walk down is genuinely lovely; the walk back, at the end of an evening, is uphill and unlit in places — most guests take a taxi, and it is worth booking before you set off. The World of Beatrix Potter attraction in the village is within a mile, and makes a good rainy afternoon, though it is an indoor exhibition rather than a historic house.
Bowness and the lake are on your doorstep. The passes, the western valleys and Near Sawrey itself are not — and summer traffic and ferry queues make driving to them a chore. Our tours carry seven guests at most, and Bowness Pier 1 is your nearest pickup, a few minutes down the hill.
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 & bookFor a stay built around the Potter story, a private day is a lovely way to do it — collected at the door, no departure time, and a route shaped around exactly which parts of her life you want to see. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard, travelling safely in the crates our vehicles carry.
Not sure which route suits your plans, or want a day built entirely from scratch — a family reunion, a wedding anniversary, scattering ashes somewhere that mattered? Tell us what you have in mind and we'll design a day around it — see our guide to celebrating a special occasion for ideas, or get in touch directly.
Finding it: navigate to Longtail Hill rather than the postcode — the hotel warns that sat navs otherwise route you to a former entrance.
Without a car: workable — the pier for tour days, taxis for the hill, boats for the lake.
If you drive: Bowness parking fills by mid-morning in season; the hotel's own parking is the better answer.
Timing: book Beatrix Potter tour days early — they are among our most popular, and there are only seven seats.
Ages: our tours suit adults and older children, about seven and up.
Yes — this is the only hotel in the Lake District she owned. She bought the house in 1915 for her mother, who lived there until her death, and it was sold in 1933. She had also stayed as a guest years earlier, before she owned it.
She illustrated two of the tales at Lindeth Howe during her stays between 1902 and 1913 — The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes and The Tale of Pigling Bland.
No — they are two different hotels with confusingly similar names, both on the hillside south of Bowness. Lindeth Howe is on Longtail Hill; Lindeth Fell is on Lyth Valley Road. Worth checking which one you have booked.
Bowness Pier 1, a few minutes down the hill — Windermere station and Ambleside library are our other two. On private tours we can usually collect you at the hotel.
Yes, and the hotel flags it themselves — the postcode leads sat navs to an old entrance. Navigate to Longtail Hill instead.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lindeth Howe.