Walk the 20 mile (32km) Ullswater Way, do the short, sharp hike up Hallin Fell near Howtown or take a ‘steamer’ trip on the lake and you’ll appreciate why Ullswater has so many admirers.

Stretching to just over seven miles (11.2km), this is where Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record in 1955 and where William and Dorothy Wordsworth spotted that sunny crop of daffodils which gave him the inspiration to write the poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils).

At the lake’s northern end around Pooley Bridge the farmland is low-lying and gentle but things pick up pace and drama as Ullswater goes through two changes of direction on the way towards the head of the lake near Glenridding. 

There, Place Fell lords it over the water to the east while Helvellyn, the third highest mountain in England, is a bit further away on the other side.

A narrow road goes down the lake (east) to Howtown and Martindale, and across the fells from there lies Haweswater reservoir in a valley once known as Mardale.