The Ambleside Inn stands in the middle of town in a traditional Lakeland slate building that has been putting travellers up for something over three hundred years. The advantage is simple and considerable: everything in Ambleside is on foot from the door, including our own pickup point outside the library.
Quick Facts
Ambleside is a working town rather than a resort, and staying in the middle of it means you can leave the car alone for the whole stay. Outdoor shops for the waterproof you forgot, a genuinely good independent cinema, bakeries and cafés that have fed fell-walkers for generations, and a knot of restaurants punching well above the town's size — all within a few minutes.
It also means our Ambleside pickup, outside the public library, is a short walk rather than a drive. Guests staying here have the easiest tour mornings of anyone.
Stock Ghyll Force is a seventy-foot fall in the woods directly behind the main street, twenty minutes' walk and at its best the day after rain. Astonishing numbers of visitors never find it. And the Bridge House, the tiny two-room building straddling the beck, is the most photographed structure in the town — built, most likely, as an apple store, and later home to a family with six children, which takes some believing when you see the size of it.
Ambleside's own museum and library holds a remarkable collection, including a body of Beatrix Potter's scientific watercolours of fungi — painted long before the tales, and a reminder that she was a serious naturalist first and a children's author second. It is a small, quiet, genuinely interesting hour.
Ambleside library is your nearest pickup — our other two are Windermere station and Bowness Pier 1. Private days collect at the door.
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 & bookCollected at the door, no departure time to walk to, and a route shaped around your party. 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.
In the middle of Ambleside, in a traditional slate building that has been offering accommodation for over three hundred years.
Our Ambleside pickup is outside the public library, a short walk from the inn — the easiest tour morning of any base we cover.
The Armitt museum, the independent cinema, and the town's cafés and shops — all within a few minutes on foot.
Ambleside's central car parks fill by mid-morning in season. Check parking arrangements with the inn when you book.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Ambleside Inn or the Inn Collection Group.