Ullswater: The Lake That Wins the Beauty Contest

Ask a roomful of Lake District guides to name the most beautiful lake and you will start a cheerful argument – but Ullswater will collect the most votes, ours included. The district's second-largest lake curves for seven and a half miles through the eastern fells in three graceful bends, so that its scenery unfolds in acts rather than all at once: pastoral at its foot, grand in its middle reach, and at its head – beneath Helvellyn, England's third-highest mountain – genuinely alpine. Victorian writers compared it to Lake Lucerne; Wordsworth found his daffodils on its shore; and a cruise down its length remains one of the loveliest journeys in Britain by any means of transport. Here is our local guide to the lake we never tire of showing off.

The shape of the water

Ullswater's genius is its geometry. The three-bend, dog-leg shape means the lake reveals itself in succession – each turn of shore or boat opens a new composition, mountains rearranging themselves around the water – and the contrast between its two ends is the whole Lake District in miniature: at the northern foot, near Pooley Bridge, soft green farmland; at the southern head, around Glenridding and Patterdale, a ring of serious summits with Helvellyn presiding. The water itself is deep, clear and cold – home to the skelly, a rare whitefish stranded here since the Ice Age – and its surface on still days produces mountain reflections that stop every vehicle we have ever driven along it. The western shore road, which our routes travel, is the classic approach: mile after mile of water on one side and climbing fells on the other, with parking pull-ins mercifully provided at the places where photography becomes compulsory.

The daffodil shore

Ullswater's most famous residents flower for a few weeks each spring. On 15 April 1802, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, walking home along this western shore below Gowbarrow, came upon the long belt of wild daffodils that Dorothy recorded in her journal and William later transformed into "I wandered lonely as a cloud" – the best-known poem in the English language, born on this exact stretch of lakeshore around Glencoyne Bay. The daffodils still return every March and April, protected on National Trust land, and standing among them with the lake glittering beyond is one of English travel's simplest, most complete experiences. Our scenic routes pass the very shore with the story told in full – and our Wordsworth-focused touring makes a proper meal of it for literary travellers.

Aira Force: the postcard waterfall

Halfway along the western shore, a wooded ravine climbs from the lake to the district's most celebrated waterfall: Aira Force, plunging around sixty-five feet under a picturesque stone footbridge amid arboretum trees planted by Victorian landowners. The National Trust maintains the paths, parking and tearoom, making the falls an easy add-on to any Ullswater visit – twenty minutes' gentle woodland walking each way – and the combination of falls, ancient trees and lake views below has been a set-piece of Lakeland touring since the eighteenth century. Wordsworth, inevitably, set poetry here too; the place obliges romantics of every generation.

On the water: the Ullswater Steamers

The lake's signature experience is afloat. The Ullswater "Steamers" – a historic little fleet whose oldest vessels have worked this water since the nineteenth century – sail between Glenridding, Howtown and Pooley Bridge year-round, and the full-length cruise is, quite simply, among the great scenic journeys of Britain: the three bends delivering their acts in sequence, Helvellyn's massif astern, and the shores – roadless for long stretches on the eastern side – entirely unspoilt. Sailings, timetables and combined walk-and-cruise ideas are at ullswater-steamers.co.uk; the classic combination pairs a boat to Howtown with the famous lakeside path back to Glenridding, often called the most beautiful low-level walk in the district. Our flagship full-day scenic tour builds an Ullswater cruise directly into the itinerary – the day's centrepiece, and routinely the moment guests name first when we say goodbye.

Villages, mountains and the valley's stories

Glenridding and Patterdale, the twin villages at the lake head, wear their mountaineering hearts openly: this is the base for Helvellyn via Striding Edge – England's most famous ridge scramble – and the cafés fill with booted walkers plotting routes. Glenridding's own history is industrial: the Greenside lead mine above the village, worked from the seventeenth century until the 1960s, was among England's most productive, and its remains lend the fellside a romantic archaeology. Around the lake's quieter reaches lie Howtown's perfect huddle, Martindale's ancient churches and England's oldest native red deer herd – and everywhere the layered names, Norse and older, that our guides love unpacking mile by mile.

Ullswater's calendar

Each season redraws the lake. Late March and April belong to the daffodils and to lambs on the shore farms; summer brings sails, swimmers and long light on the water until ten at night; autumn sets the birchwoods and bracken of the eastern shore ablaze – many locals' choice for the lake's finest month is October; and winter, with Helvellyn white above dark still water, produces the most dramatic Ullswater of all, on roads and boats suddenly returned to the unhurried. The steamers sail year-round, which tells you everything: there is no month in which this lake is not worth the journey.

Seeing Ullswater properly

Ullswater rewards approach as much as arrival – which is why our routes reach it the dramatic way, over the Kirkstone Pass from Windermere, dropping past Brothers Water into Patterdale so the lake opens ahead in full mountain dress. On our small-group scenic tours from Windermere and Ambleside – maximum seven guests – Ullswater stars in both the full-day circuits (with cruise) and our half-day eight-lakes route, daffodil shore, waterfall country and all. The beauty-contest verdict, after years of judging: Windermere is the grandest, Buttermere the most perfect, Derwentwater the queenliest – but Ullswater, seen from the water on a bright morning, is the one that makes guests go quiet. In our trade, that silence is the trophy.

This article is part of our scenic Lake District guides collection – twenty in-depth guides researched and written by our local team. Browse the full library on our Travel Guide Library.