England Guide
Cumbria and the Lakes
Ullswater
At seven miles, serpentine Ullswater is Cumbria's second-longest lake. The chief settlements, Glenridding and Patterdale, are less than a mile apart at the southern tip, and are not otherwise notable except as bases for climbing Helvellyn (3114ft), the most popular of the four 3000-foot mountains in Cumbria. There are buses here from Penrith (the #108, via Pooley Bridge and Aira Force to Glenridding and Patterdale) and from Bowness (#517 Kirkstone Rambler, via the Kirkstone Pass, daily in summer school hols, weekends and bank hols from Easter– Oct).
The former mining village of GLENRIDDING features several inexpensive B&Bs, including Beech House ( 
017684/82037, 
www.beechhouse.com ; Price: ₤61-70), as well as a couple of grander hotels, and there's camping and bunkhouse accommodation half a mile away up the valley at Gillside Caravan & Camping ( 017684/82346; closed Nov– Feb). It's a seven-mile (5–6hr) circuit to climb the mountain from Glenridding, but hikers wanting an early start on Helvellyn stay at Helvellyn YHA ( 0845/371 9742, www.yha.org.uk; from £13), a mile and a half up the valley road from Glenridding.
At Gowbarrow Park, three miles north of Glenridding, the hillside still blazes green and gold in spring, as it was doing when the Wordsworths visited in April 1802; it's thought that Dorothy's recollections of the visit in her diary inspired William to write his famous "Daffodils" poem. The car park and tea-rooms here mark the start of a brief walk up to Aira Force (40min round-trip), a seventy-foot fall that's spectacular in spate.
The lake itself is traversed by the Ullswater Steamers ( 017684/82229, www.ullswater-steamers.co.uk ), which have year-round services from Glenridding to Howtown, halfway up the lake's eastern side (£7.90 return; 35min), and from Howtown to the pretty village of Pooley Bridge, at the northern end of the lake (£7.20; 20min).
A minor road from Howtown hugs the eastern shore of the lake the four miles to Pooley Bridge, passing the incomparable Sharrow Bay ( 017684/86301, www.sharrowbay.com ; Price: ₤201 and above with dinner) on the way, one of England's finest country-house hotels.