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Wordsworth Morning Tour
Dove Cottage, Grasmere and Rydal, back at one — leaving the walled garden and the woodland for the afternoon and the table for the evening. The best-matched day we run.
See dates & bookForest Side is the whole of this collection compressed into one building: a Michelin Star for the restaurant, a Michelin Green Star for how it grows and sources what it serves, and a Michelin Key for the hotel. Nowhere else in Cumbria holds all three. The day around it should earn the evening.
Quick Facts
Paul Leonard's kitchen holds a Michelin Star, and for the 2026 guide Forest Side added a Michelin Green Star — one of a small number awarded nationally that year, and given for sustainable gastronomy rather than for the cooking alone. The hotel holds one Michelin Key, decided separately.
The walled kitchen garden is not decoration. It grows well over a hundred varieties without chemicals and the menu is built from it, with the rest sourced within about ten miles or foraged locally. Walk it before dinner rather than after and the meal reads differently.
Short, if you are in the central Lakes. Forest Side is on the Keswick road just outside Grasmere, about ten minutes up the valley from Ambleside and around twenty-five minutes from Windermere.
Grasmere's own car parks fill by mid-morning in season, but that is a village problem rather than a hotel one — the hotel has its own grounds.
Comfortably a full one. Our full-day tours return to Ambleside at six, ten minutes down the road. Our morning tours return at one, which leaves an afternoon for the garden, the woodland behind — red squirrels and roe deer, both genuinely present — and the Grasmere-to-Rydal circuit, four easy miles taking in two lakes.
The pairing that fits the place best is the Wordsworth Morning Tour: Dove Cottage and Rydal in the morning, the walled garden in the afternoon, dinner in the evening. One valley, one day, no driving against a clock.
Staying here solves it. If you are coming in for the table from Windermere or Bowness, pre-book the return — the A591 corridor is well served but not at eleven at night in February.
Dove Cottage, Grasmere and Rydal, back at one — leaving the walled garden and the woodland for the afternoon and the table for the evening. The best-matched day we run.
See dates & bookThe big day: ten lakes, the high passes and an Ullswater cruise, back in Ambleside at six and at the hotel by ten past.
See dates & bookCollected from the hotel door, dogs welcome in our vehicle crates, and returned in time to change. From £459 per group.
See dates & bookWe have a full guide to what to do around Forest Side, covering the estate, the village and the valley. The Green Star page explains what that particular distinction actually measures.
The restaurant holds one Michelin Star and, from the 2026 guide, a Michelin Green Star for sustainable gastronomy. The hotel separately holds one Michelin Key. It is the only property in Cumbria holding all three.
Ambleside library is about ten minutes down the valley. Windermere station and Bowness Pier 1 are the other two, around twenty-five minutes away.
A separate distinction for restaurants at the forefront of sustainable practice — how produce is grown, sourced and handled — rather than for the cooking alone.
Forest Side welcomes dogs, and well-behaved dogs are welcome on our private tours, travelling in the crates our vehicles carry. Dogs cannot join scheduled departures.
We are an independent local tour operator. We have no affiliation with, and no commercial arrangement of any kind with, any restaurant or hotel named on this page. There are no paid placements and no affiliate links here.