Tarn How's, Hawkshead

Start: The Queens Head, Main Street, Hawkshead, Cumbria (LA22 0NS)

(S/E) From the front door of The Queens Head, turn left and walk down Main Street past the Hawkshead outlet. Turn right through the gates of the Old Grammar School and enter the churchyard. When the path forks, keep left to a gate at the end of the churchyard and follow the path beyond to another gate. Bear right, signposted ‘Walker Ground/Hawkshead Village’. 5 Beyond a wooden gate, follow a track out to a metalled
lane.

(1) Turn left then immediately right through a wooden kissing gate beside some stone gateposts. Cross the field to a footpath junction by a stile on the other side, before which turn left and walk up the slope to a field gate. Follow the path to a stone kissing gate and continue ahead to the corner of a wood.

(2) Follow the path as it bears right. After a wooden kissing gate, descend to a bridge over the stream and cross the bridge. A stony path beyond leads to another kissing gate. Cross the field ahead, crossing the drive to Thompson Ground Farm, then descend to another stone kissing gate into the road.

(3) Ignoring the path to Grizedale on the left, follow the road ahead through the hamlet of Hawkshead Hill. Having passed the Baptist Chapel, turn right, signposted ‘Tarn Hows (unsuitable for coaches)’. Follow this lane uphill past a phone booth and postbox to a triangular junction; keep left, then turn left and immediately right (again signposted ‘Tarn Hows’).

(4) After about 80 yards, go through a kissing gate on your left and bear right, parallel to the road; swing left to a kissing gate, and follow the path beyond to the top right-hand corner of the next field. Here take the right-hand kissing gate, with a fingerpost to ‘Tarn Hows (¾ mile)’. Descend through the trees to cross a small stream, and climb the hill beyond, ignoring a crossing path that leads through a gate on your right. Climbing through open pinewoods, the path passes close to the road, but stay to the left of the wall, parallel to the road, until a gate on the right gives access to the road by the viewpoint car park.

(5) Turn left and walk down the road towards the lake of Tarn Hows.

(6) Before the car park at the bottom of the hill, turn right and walk down a broad path to the end of the lake. Turn right and follow an obvious wide path, with the water on your left. Beyond a gate the path continues past a bench with views over the tarn. After passing an inlet, a path (signposted to Hawkshead) joins from the right. Keep straight on (signposted ‘Skelwith Bridge & Langdales’).

(7) At the end of the wood, the main path swings left; leave it to cross the stile ahead of you, leaving the woods. Cross a boggy area and bear right around a low hillock, in an area of rough grassland studded with juniper bushes (ignore a vague path ahead over the hillock). The path winds through bracken, with fine views to the Langdale Pikes and beyond to the left, before meeting a rough track at a stile.

(8) Turn right and follow the track for a little over half a mile, with views to the pillar on the summit of Latterbarrow and glimpses of Esthwaite Water and Windermere, to meet the end of a no-through road, where you keep right, signposted to Hawkshead.

(9) On meeting another road, turn right then immediately left at a triangular junction, signposted to Hawkshead. Follow the narrow lane past the houses of Sand Ground. After three quarters of a mile, you meet the B5285. Turn left and walk down to the junction by Hawkshead Courthouse (A).

(10) Turn left, then right into the entrance to the campsite at Hawkshead Hall Farm; beyond the entrance gate, turn right and follow the permitted path along the beck. Ignore the path heading left to Wray Castle and Ambleside, continuing along the beck until you reach a footbridge. Turn right over the bridge and follow the narrow track beyond past a couple of houses to the road at Hawkshead. Cross straight over and through the gate. Walk through Red Lion Yard and under the archway, beyond which turn left to return to The Queens Head.(S/E)

Start: The Queens Head, Main Street, Hawkshead, Cumbria LA22 0NS

Tel: 01539 436271
Email: info@queensheadhawkshead.co.uk

Notes: A long but mostly gradual climb is followed by a stony but gentle descent and some road walking on the return.

Find more information on Walks From the Door.

(A) Hawkshead Courthouse is all that survives of a monastic grange. Built in the 1400s, it once served as the gatehouse into a courtyard and is unique in Lakeland. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The key for Hawkshead Courthouse can be borrowed from the National Trust shop in Hawkshead on receipt of a small deposit.