Grasmere & Rydal

One of the Lake District’s prettiest villages is Grasmere, nestled in a vale just north of Grasmere lake and crowned by magnificent fells and mountains on all sides. This is romantic England at its purest: immediately south of town is the rugged peak of Helm Crag (aka ‘the Lion and the Lamb’), while to the north is the ancient cairn known as Dunmail Raise. All around it are the scattered hamlets and farmsteads, while dense woodlands and lush meadows fringe the lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water and Loughrigg Tarn.
 
Hardly surprising that painters, poets, writers and craftsmen were drawn to the area. Wordsworth described the vale of Grasmere and Rydal as ‘the loveliest spot that man hath ever found’, before moving here permanently. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Sir Walter Scott also stayed here, whilst the writer Thomas de Quincey moved into Dove Cottage on Wordsworth’s departure.
 
From the 18th century onwards, many artists journeyed here in search of ‘the picturesque and the sublime’, including William Green, John Constable and Turner. In more recent times, the Heaton Cooper family succeeded in capturing the changing moods of the Lake District in watercolours.

Food & Drink in Grasmere and Rydal

Anyone who visits Grasmere and nearby Rydal, just has to experience a post-walk cream tea. Tearooms, some of which are hidden away in beautiful surroundings, will guarantee you a warm welcome, with a variety of teas and coffees on offer and scones and homemade cakes to die for. Well worth plotting into your walking plans!

For a small place, Grasmere does well with its fine dining experiences, whilst still maintaining an unstuffy and relaxing atmosphere. It even boasts a Michellin Star restaurant, where fine dining is taken up to another level. Fine dining is available in many restaurants here, offering exquisite explosions of flavours, where the food is absolutely faultless.

Grasmere also has some amazing quirky cafes with twinkling lights and scatter cushions creating a lovely ambiance in which to enjoy a very high standard of food. As with many of these charming little cafes-come-restaurants, they’re very popular, so it’s wise to book ahead if you’re going in the evening.

After a long day on the Grasmere fells, stepping into a welcoming pub is like a little piece of heaven. They’re all dog-friendly with reliable WiFi and offer a superb choice of local ales and award-winning food. There’s everything from a 16C coaching inn, full of old world charm and roaring log fires and panoramic views - to characterful walkers’ bars, offering tasty classic pub food. For the beer buffs among you, there’s a wide selection of ales approved by CAMRA. But before you leave Grasmere there’s one more must-try foods – the delicious sweet treat, Grasmere Gingerbread.

Culture & Heritage

Grasmere’s early history was all about farming, the manufacture of wool as well as some mineral and rock extraction. In the middle of the 16th century, Grasmere was home to 15 ‘fulling’ mills, where newly woven fabrics were pounded in soapy water with heavy hammers (or ‘stocks;’ hence Stock Lane in town) to shrink the fibres and therefore create denser, fuller fabric.
 
Local woods were coppiced to supply charcoal for iron ore smelting and bark for tanneries, and with greater prosperity in the 18th century came a building spurt, with the stone drawn from local quarries – White Stone quarry on the A591 was one of these (it’s now a car park).
 
Several packhorse trails once radiated out from the village; the ponies carrying cloths, fleeces, and other goods to markets in Keswick, Penrith and Kendal (via Ambleside). The old packhorse trail between Ambleside and Grasmere used to be the main route between the two towns before the new turnpike road (now the A591) was opened in 1770.

For most contemporary visitors, though, it’s the arrival of the Romantics from the middle of the 18th century that really put Grasmere and the surrounding area on the map. Painters, writers and poets in search of the picturesque and romantic notions of beauty came to explore the Lake District. William Wordsworth (1770–1850) came to live here in 1799 and spent much time walking in the area, composing lines of poetry based on what he experienced. His most inspirational years were spent at Dove Cottage (1799–1808). He and his family then moved to the more spacious Allan Bank (1808–1811), followed by a short stint at the Rectory (1811–1814) and lastly to Rydal Mount (1814–1850). Fellow poets and writers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Sir Walter Scott, were frequent guests of the Wordsworths.

Once the new turnpike roads were completed in the late 18th century and the railway had arrived in Windermere in 1847, Victorian tourists came in their droves to experience the landscapes that had inspired the Lake Poets.

Surrounding Areas
 

Rydal - The hamlet of Rydal is associated with two influential families: the Le Flemings and the Wordsworths. Rydal Hall was the home of the Le Fleming family who moved here from Coniston Hall and Rydal Mount was Wordsworth’s home for the last 37 years of his life.

Thirlmere - Thirlmere is a pretty, clear lake with a wooded shoreline and is best enjoyed from the west shore which winds its way through the trees.Thirlmere was once two smaller lakes called Leatheswater and Brackmere. The two lakes were joined by a footbridge until damning in 1879 created a rise in the water levels and Thirlmere was formed as the two lakes overflowed. It now serves as a water supply for Manchester.