Things to do in Cumbria

Aira Force near Ullswater in the Lake District National Park is one of the finest waterfalls in the Lake District, a powerful cascade falling approximately 20 metres through a narrow gorge of considerable drama beneath a stone arch bridge that frames the fall from above in a composition of great visual sophistication. The National Trust manages the surrounding woodland and the well-maintained paths through the gorge provide excellent access to the falls and to the further reaches of the Aira Beck above. The fall is set in a wooded ravine of considerable beauty, the mixed deciduous woodland of oak, ash and birch creating a sheltered, moisture-retaining environment in which ferns, mosses and lichens flourish on every available surface. The contrast between the enclosed woodland gorge and the open Ullswater lakeside visible from the path above creates a landscape of considerable variety in a short walk. The falls are most impressive in winter and spring when the rainfall is highest and the surrounding deciduous trees allow light into the gorge. The story of the Knight and the Maiden, from which Wordsworth derived his poem The Somnambulist, is associated with Aira Force, giving the waterfall a Romantic literary dimension that appealed greatly to the Victorian visitors who came in large numbers to the Lake District in the railway age. The Martindale deer forest above the falls provides excellent red deer watching in the autumn rut, and the path to the high country above provides access to one of the finest unspoiled upland landscapes in the national park.

Appleby Castle is located in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, The castle overlooks the River Eden. The castle grounds has a 12th century square keep known as Caesar's tower, and a mansion house and ancillary buildings in a courtyard surrounded by curtain walls. Caesar's tower is about 80 feet high with four storeys. The mansion house is L-shaped with two wings at right angles to each other. There is a semi-circular tower on the north wall of the north wing and a large square tower is at the southern end of the east wing. The gateway to the castle courtyard and two adjoining cottages are listed Grade I. The gateway has battlements and dates from around the 17th century. Both Caesar's tower and the mansion are Grade I listed buildings. Appleby Castle is a private residence and is not open to the public. The keep known as Caesar's Tower was built about 1170. The castle was captured by the Scottish King, William the Lion, when his army invaded the Eden Valley in 1174. The English regained the castle and in 1203 it was granted to Richard de Vipont by King John. In 1269, ownership went to Roger de Clifford and it remained in the Clifford family for nearly 400 years. The eastern part of what is now the mansion house was built in 1454. In the 17th century, the castle passed to the Earls of Thanet. They converted the eastern block into a mansion house in 1686, and extended it by adding the north wing in 1695. The upper storeys of Caesar's tower were modified in the 17th and 18th centuries. A north lodge with battlements was added in the 19th century.

Brough Castle is located in the village of Brough, Cumbria, England. The motte and bailey castle was built on the site of a former Roman fort. The Castle is now in ruins. There is the remains of a gatehouse, once three storeys high. There is some sandstone paving in the courtyard, and the remains of stables. The ruined keep used to have four corner turrets, the basement was a storehouse and still has some plaster on the walls. The upper floors and stairs of the keep have gone. The remains of a brewhouse, bakehouse, and kitchen can be seen in a corner of the courtyard. There was an inner and outer range of buildings in the southeast corner. There is also a circular tower in the south east corner, known as Clifford's Tower that contained Lady Anne Clifford's chambers. The castle is open to the public, and there are information panels explaining the layout of the site. Brough Castle was built by William Rufus in the 1090s as a stone motte and bailey castle. It was one of the first stone castles to be built in Britain. The stonework of the walls show a herringbone pattern common in Norman architecture. Brough Castle was captured and burned down in 1174 by the Scottish king William the Lion during he Revolt of 1173-1174. All that was left was the base of the keep. The keep was rebuilt in the 1180s by Theobald de Valoignes. King John gave the castle to Robert of Vieuxpont in 1203. In the 1268 the castle passed to the Clifford family, the barons de Clifford, who also owned Brougham Castle. Robert Clifford extended the castle building a circular tower at the south east corner, known as Clifford's Tower, around 1300. The Cliffords also added a new upper hall and associated chambers around 1350. The Cliffords lived at Brough Castle until 1521, when fire destroyed the castle. After lying abandoned for about 140 years, Lady Anne Clifford began to restore the castle in 1659. After her death in 1676 the castle was left uninhabited, and passed to the Earls of Thanet, who lived at Appleby Castle in Appleby-in-Westmorland. Brough castle began to decline and the roof and fittings was removed in 1715. Much of the stone was taken for building Brough mill in 1763. The castle came under the protection of the Ministry of Works in 1920. It is now cared for by English Heritage.

Brougham Castle stands at the confluence of the rivers Eamont and Lowther in Cumbria near the market town of Penrith, a substantial Norman and medieval fortress whose ruins retain considerable height and architectural detail and provide an important and atmospheric insight into the military history of the northern Marches and the route between England and Scotland that passed through this river crossing. The castle was first built by Robert de Vieuxpont in the early thirteenth century using the strategic position at the river confluence to control movement through the Eden valley, a function that had been performed by a Roman fort on the same site many centuries earlier. The castle passed through various hands before coming into the possession of the Clifford family, who became the most significant owners in its history. The Cliffords were one of the most powerful baronial families of the north of England during the medieval period, and their ownership of Brougham, Brough, Appleby and Skipton castles gave them control over the approaches to the Lake District and the Eden valley throughout the later Middle Ages. Lady Anne Clifford, who recovered her family's hereditary estates in the 1640s after a long legal battle and spent the remainder of her long life restoring and occupying the Clifford castles, made extensive repairs to Brougham in the 1660s. The Roman tower that survives within the castle enclosure is largely her work. Lady Anne Clifford is one of the most remarkable figures in seventeenth-century English history, a woman whose determination to recover and maintain her inheritance in the face of sustained legal opposition, and whose lifelong investment in restoring and inhabiting the ancient Clifford castles, represents an extraordinary assertion of identity and continuity. Her diary and her Great Picture recording her life and family history are among the most significant personal documents of the period. The castle is managed by English Heritage and the ruins of the great tower, the gatehouse and the inner ward are open to visitors throughout the year.

Buttermere is one of the smaller and more perfectly formed lakes in the English Lake District, a ribbon of dark, clear water set in a valley enclosed by some of the most impressive fells in the district, including Red Pike, High Stile and Haystacks rising steeply from the southern shore and the lower but significant Mellbreak on the western side. The lake is fed by two valley streams and drains northward into Crummock Water, the larger lake downstream, and the combination of the two lakes in their mountain setting makes the valley one of the most consistently beautiful in the Lake District. Buttermere's most famous devotee was Alfred Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells devoted loving attention to the mountains surrounding the valley and who left instructions that his ashes be scattered on the summit of Haystacks, the fell he described as his favourite in all the Lake District. Wainwright's ashes were duly scattered at Innominate Tarn on the Haystacks summit, and the walk from Buttermere to Haystacks has become a pilgrimage for Wainwright enthusiasts, combining genuinely excellent fell walking with the emotional resonance of the landscape's association with one of the most beloved writers on the British countryside. The village of Buttermere, at the northern end of the lake between Buttermere and Crummock Water, consists of two pubs, a church and a farm, which collective modesty gives the settlement a character entirely appropriate to the landscape it inhabits. The Fish Hotel, now a pub and restaurant, was at the centre of one of the more extraordinary human interest stories of the early nineteenth century when its landlord's daughter, Mary Robinson, attracted national attention through her beauty and was deceived into a bigamous marriage by the impostor John Hatfield, whose subsequent prosecution and hanging attracted enormous public interest. The circular walk around Buttermere lake, approximately five miles and entirely manageable for most walkers, is one of the finest low-level lakeshore walks in the Lake District.

Carlisle Castle is situated in the city of Carlisle in Cumbria, England. The oldest surviving building is the large 12th century keep located at the north east corner of the inner courtyard. The keep used to be the Royal Palace of David I. On the first floor of the keep is the 'licking stones'. Prisoners captured during the Jacobite uprising were kept without water and used to lick the stones to get enough moisture to survive. Other buildings in the courtyard include the inner Gatehouse (known as the Captain's Tower). There ruins of the royal apartments, the chapel, the Great Hall, and the ruins of Queen Mary's Tower in the north east corner where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned. The tower is one of the oldest buildings of the castle. The Museum of the King's Own Border Regiment is also in the courtyard. There castle has a gift shop that sells medieval souvenirs. The castle is now managed by English Heritage. Carlisle Castle is situated near the border between England and Scotland, and has been the a centre of numerous battles and sieges. many wars and invasions. The castle was first built during the late 11th century during the reign of William II of England, the son of William the Conqueror. Carlisle Castle was built as a Norman style motte and bailey castle on the site of an old Roman fort with construction beginning in 1093. In 1122, Henry I of England ordered a stone castle to be constructed on the site, and a stone keep and defensive walls were built. Carlisle Castle changed hands between the Scots and English a number of times. King David of Scotland captured the castle in 1135 and completed the walls and stone keep. The English recaptured it a few years later. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned within the castle for a few months in 1568. During the English Civil War, the castle was besieged by Parliamentary forces for eight months in 1644. During the Jacobite rebellion against George II in 1745, forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) travelled south from Scotland into England as far south as Derby. The most important battles for the city of Carlisle and its castle were during the second Jacobite rising of Great Britain in 1745. Carlisle Castle was captured and fortified by the Jacobites. They were driven out by the forces of the William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the son of George II. The Jacobites were imprisoned in the castle and then executed. After the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland, there was no further military need for Carlisle Castle and the castle fell into disrepair. Some parts of the castle were demolished in the 19th Century. The army subsequently used the castle as the regimental depot of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment until 1959. It is now county headquarters to the Duke of Lancasters Regiment and a museum to the regiment is within the castle walls.

Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswick in the Lake District is one of the most impressively situated prehistoric monuments in Britain, a circle of thirty-eight standing stones of approximately 3000 BC set on a hilltop plateau completely surrounded by the mountains of the northern Lake District in a position that commands views of Skiddaw, Blencathra, Helvellyn and the surrounding peaks in one of the most dramatic mountain settings of any prehistoric monument in England. The combination of the stone circle and the mountain panorama creates an experience of remarkable power. The circle is approximately 30 metres in diameter and includes an unusual rectangular setting of stones within the circle on the east side, an arrangement found at no other British stone circle and whose purpose remains unknown. The stones are local Borrowdale Volcanic rock, dark and angular, and their placement on the natural hilltop provides a commanding position that would have been visible from a wide area of the surrounding landscape during the Neolithic period when the lake basin was open woodland rather than the enclosed agricultural land of today. The site is freely accessible and the combination of the prehistoric monument and the mountain landscape around it creates one of the most atmospheric and most visited heritage sites in the Lake District. The views from Castlerigg encompass virtually all the major peaks of the northern and eastern Lake District and the orientation of various features of the circle has been studied for astronomical alignments, though no clear consensus has emerged.

Hadrian's Wall is the most important Roman monument in Britain and one of the most significant surviving military frontiers of the Roman Empire, an eighty-mile barrier built across northern Britain between the Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne between approximately 122 and 130 AD on the orders of Emperor Hadrian during his visit to Britain. The wall, together with its system of milecastles, turrets, forts and the vallum earthwork to its south, represents one of the most ambitious military construction projects in Roman history and defined the northern frontier of Roman Britain for nearly three centuries. The wall was built primarily from local stone in the central and eastern sections and from turf in the west, with the stone sections providing the most impressive surviving remains today. At its completion it stood approximately five metres high with a parapet walk above, backed by a ditch on the northern side and the vallum, a flat-bottomed ditch with earth banks, on the southern side. Forts positioned at regular intervals along the wall housed the garrisons that maintained the frontier, with the major forts at Housesteads, Vindolanda and Chesters among the most extensively excavated and best-presented to visitors. The best-preserved sections are concentrated in the central sector where the wall runs along the dramatic Whin Sill escarpment, the hard volcanic rock that provides both ideal defensive high ground and, in some sections, the building material for the wall itself. The view from the high sections of the wall, with the open Northumberland landscape stretching to the horizon on both sides and the wall itself visible for miles in either direction, communicates the Roman achievement of this frontier with extraordinary clarity. The Hadrian's Wall Path national trail follows the wall for its full eighty miles and the site museums at the major forts hold outstanding collections of Roman finds.

Hadrian's Wall Path is one of England's sixteen National Trails and follows the route of the most significant Roman engineering project ever undertaken in Britain. The wall was commissioned by Emperor Hadrian during his visit to the province in AD 122 and stretched 73 miles from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway on the Solway Firth in the west. Its purpose was to define and defend the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, and it remained garrisoned for nearly three centuries. The walking trail runs for approximately 135 kilometres and is officially waymarked from coast to coast, allowing walkers to complete the full route in around seven to nine days depending on pace. The eastern sections begin at Segedunum Roman Fort in Wallsend, where an excellent museum and reconstructed sections of wall set the historical scene before the trail heads west into the open countryside. The central section, crossing Northumberland through some of the most dramatic landscape in northern England, provides the walk's most memorable miles. The wall's central section along the Whin Sill, a dramatic ridge of volcanic dolerite rock, offers the most iconic scenery. Here the wall follows the natural line of the cliff edge in great sweeping curves, with the Roman engineers exploiting the landscape's natural defensive potential to maximum effect. Housesteads Fort, perched on the Whin Sill, is the best-preserved Roman fort in Britain and gives a vivid sense of life on the frontier. The scale of the barracks, the granaries and the latrines is genuinely astonishing. Along the route, walkers pass through a remarkable concentration of Roman heritage: milecastles, turrets, vallum earthworks, bridges and garrison towns. Vindolanda, just south of the wall, has produced the famous Vindolanda Tablets, thin wooden writing tablets that preserve personal letters, shopping lists and military reports from the frontier garrison. They represent the largest surviving collection of written documents from Roman Britain and provide an intimate glimpse into daily life 1,800 years ago. The landscape itself shifts dramatically along the route. The eastern sections cross suburban Newcastle and pastoral farmland before the trail climbs onto the exposed moorland of Northumberland. The west brings a transition to gentler lowlands approaching the Solway Firth, with its wide tidal flats and distant views towards the Scottish hills. The variety ensures that even experienced walkers find fresh scenery throughout the journey. The path is accessible year-round, though the high central section can be challenging in winter weather. Luggage transfer services operate between the main stopping points, and accommodation options range from camping to comfortable guesthouses in villages along the route. Transport links at both ends make linear walking straightforward, and sections of the trail can also be enjoyed as day walks from the various visitor centres and car parks along the route.

Helvellyn is the third highest mountain in England, rising to 950 metres above sea level within the Lake District National Park, and it is arguably the most dramatic of England's major peaks. While the summit plateau is broad and accessible in good conditions, it is the approach along Striding Edge that has made Helvellyn famous: a narrow, exhilarating arete of rock that requires confident scrambling and provides some of the finest mountain walking in England. Striding Edge extends east from the summit and drops sharply on both sides, with exposed sections of rocky crest that demand care and concentration, particularly in wet or icy conditions. Walkers who are comfortable on rough terrain and have a good head for heights find the ridge a thrilling experience; those less at ease can find an easier descent route that avoids the most exposed sections. The companion approach from the north, along Swirral Edge, offers a similarly impressive though slightly less severe ridgeline that gives access to the sharp subsidiary summit of Catstycam. The mountain holds a particular place in literary history. William Wordsworth and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge both climbed Helvellyn in the early nineteenth century, and their experiences fed into the wider Romantic engagement with the Lake District landscape. A more poignant story attaches to the summit plateau, where a memorial plaque commemorates a dog named Fido who remained beside the body of his fallen master on the mountain for three months in 1805 before either was discovered. The incident inspired poems by both Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott. From the summit in clear conditions the panorama extends across much of the Lake District, taking in the full length of Ullswater to the east, the Helvellyn range stretching north and south, and on exceptional days the Isle of Man and the mountains of Scotland visible beyond. The eastern face drops dramatically into the deep bowl of Red Tarn, one of the most beautifully situated mountain tarns in the national park, and the angle of the corrie walls above it recalls the glacial forces that carved this landscape during the last Ice Age. Several approaches make Helvellyn accessible. The most popular start points are Glenridding and Patterdale on the shores of Ullswater to the east, with most walkers ascending via Striding Edge and descending by Swirral Edge or the Grisedale path to create a satisfying circular route. Western approaches from Thirlmere are gentler and longer. The mountain should be treated with respect; conditions on the summit can change rapidly and winter snow and ice make the edges genuinely serious mountaineering terrain.

Pendragon Castle is reputed to have been founded by Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur. According to legend, Uther Pendragon and a hundred of his men were killed here when the Saxon invaders poisoned the well. There are also claims that the Romans built at least a temporary fort here, along the road between their forts at Brough and Bainbridge. But (apart from legend and supposition), there is no real evidence that there was any building here before the Normans built their castle in the 12th Century. The castle was built next to the River Eden in the Vale of Mallerstang in the late 12th century, probably by Hugh de Morville. Like the nearby castles of Appleby and Brough, Pendragon came into the possession of the Clifford family. It was abandoned after a raiding Scottish army set fire to the castle in 1341, but was rebuilt in 1360. It was left in ruins by another fire in 1541, but was restored in the mid 17th century by Lady Anne Clifford. The castle gradually fell back into ruin after her death – and now remains a romantic ruin, set in glorious scenery. NOTE: Pendragon castle is on private land. Access is permitted, but care must be taken – it is in a potentially dangerous condition despite some recent restoration.

Penrith Castle is a ruined fourteenth and fifteenth-century castle in Penrith in Cumbria, built to defend the town against Scottish raids in the period of persistent Border warfare following the Wars of Independence. The castle was developed over several phases from 1399 onward and was associated with Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III, who held the castle as Warden of the Western Marches. The substantial ruins include the remains of the main tower and curtain walls and are set within a public park in the centre of Penrith, providing a freely accessible heritage site within the town. Penrith is an attractive market town on the eastern edge of the Lake District and the M6 motorway corridor, serving as a gateway to the northern Lakes for visitors travelling from the north and east.

Piel Castle from the road which runs down the eastern side of the south of Walney Island. This photo was taken from near Scar End Point looking eastwards at the keep of the castle. The gatehouse to the inner bailey at Piel Castle, with the keep visible behind it. Piel Island and Castle

St Bees is a small coastal village on the Cumbrian coast south of Whitehaven whose headland of St Bees Head provides the most westerly point in the north of England and whose beach of red sandstone pebbles and sand below the red cliffs provides a distinctive and relatively uncrowded coastal destination on a section of the English coast that is much less visited than the neighbouring Lake District. The village is significant as the western terminus of the Coast to Coast walk, Alfred Wainwright's celebrated 192-mile crossing of England to Robin Hood's Bay, and the tradition of collecting a pebble from the beach before setting off eastward is one of the established ceremonies of British long-distance walking. St Bees Head, the red sandstone headland north of the beach, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest whose cliff faces support the only mainland breeding colony of black guillemots in England, a seabird species otherwise confined as a British breeding bird to Scotland and Ireland. The black guillemots, with their distinctive white wing patches visible in flight, breed in the cliff crevices and caves of the headland and can be observed from the cliff path that traverses the headland between the coast guard station and the lighthouse. The priory church in the village, a substantial Norman building, represents the remains of the Benedictine priory established here in the early twelfth century and provides the village with an architectural and historical depth unusual for its modest size. The Cumbrian coastal path from St Bees northward toward Whitehaven and southward toward Barrow provides excellent walking in a coastal landscape quite different from the better-known scenery of the Lake District a few miles inland.

Ullswater is the second largest lake in the English Lake District, a ribbon of water extending nearly 12 kilometres through one of the most varied and dramatic lake landscapes in Cumbria. Unlike the more open, western lakes of the district, Ullswater is enclosed by substantial fells on all sides, its three angled reaches creating a sequence of views that change character as the lake bends, each turn revealing a new arrangement of wooded shoreline, open hillside and mountain skyline that has been drawing artists and tourists to the lake since the eighteenth century. The western shore of the lake between Glenridding and Aira Force is the most celebrated section, carrying the traditional tourist route with views across the water toward the eastern fells of Hallin Fell and Place Fell. Aira Force itself, a spectacular waterfall in a wooded gorge managed by the National Trust, draws large numbers of visitors independently of the lake and the combination of the falls, the adjacent woodland and the shoreline walks makes this section of the lake one of the most rewarding in the district. William Wordsworth's encounter with the daffodils on the shore of Ullswater near Gowbarrow Park in 1802, shared with his sister Dorothy whose journal account provided the material for the poem, produced one of the most celebrated lyric poems in the English language. The daffodil colonies on the western shore are still visible in spring and the association with the poem gives a literary dimension to the lakeside walking that the poem's enduring familiarity has made peculiarly powerful. The Ullswater Steamers have operated on the lake since 1859, providing scheduled passenger services between Pooley Bridge at the northern end and Glenridding at the south. The vessels, some of which date from the Victorian and Edwardian periods and have been carefully maintained, provide a relaxing way to experience the changing character of the lake and connect the main walking routes along the shoreline. The fell walking above the lake, particularly the circuit of Helvellyn from Glenridding, represents some of the finest high mountain walking in England.