Hawkshead is one of the most beautifully preserved villages in the Lake District — a car-free centre of whitewashed buildings and medieval courts where Wordsworth went to school — and it sits amid some of the finest and most varied walking in the southern Lakes, between Coniston Water and Esthwaite Water.

A car-free village with a good range of accommodation and cafés, Hawkshead makes an excellent and pleasantly quiet walking base. The National Trust owns much of the surrounding land and maintains the paths to a high standard.