Rough Guide | Ambleside Online

Rough Local Guide Here you will find first hand, up to date and relevant info from local people who know, and not just about accommodation and eating out. We take you beyond the mundane listings of hotels, B&Bs and attractions, into the hidden local psyche with its dark secrets and repressed passions, and outline some of the ISSUES.

So where is AMBLESIDE . .? . . only six hours drive or five hours rail from London, less than two from Manchester or Liverpool, one hour from the Scottish border, three from Edinburgh . . . . avoid the rest of England (too tiring) and speed instead to unique, relaxing Ambleside, where you will find fine food, wine and ale to complement the glorious lakeside mountain setting of this historic . . er . . sorry, prehistoric community. It was here before the Roman occupation, which lasted 400 years, it survived and prospered under the Viking invasion and it will be here after the tourist invasion, which so far has lasted only 200 years. (Blame Wordsworth for this latter invasion please, not the Tourist Board. As the French revolution cut off the English gentry from their European Grand Tour, their writers and artists began to extol the glory of Lakeland, creating as they did so the necessary myths which are their stock in trade and which survive to this day to persuade the discerning visitor of the rare quality of this landscape.)
Holding out stubbornly against this endless horde of apparently tireless walkers, climbers and futile seekers after the long-gone romance of the English countryside, the locals (peasantry, as the 19th century writers would insist) gallantly strive to ignore the alien cultures which mass tourism imposes on their quiet lives, complaining only, as they reap the doubtful material rewards, that “t’ spot’s thrang wi’ t’ boogers” (Eng. “there are rather too many of them, don’t you think?”) So visit Ambleside before you die, everyone else does! Practicalities – Where To Stay, Eating Out, Getting Around, and What To Do History People and Current Issues

Rough Local Guide

Here you will find first hand, up to date and relevant info from local people who know, and not just about accommodation and eating out. We take you beyond the mundane listings of hotels, B&Bs and attractions, into the hidden local psyche with its dark secrets and repressed passions, and outline some of the ISSUES.

So where is AMBLESIDE . .?

. . only six hours drive or five hours rail from London, less than two from Manchester or Liverpool, one hour from the Scottish border, three from Edinburgh . . . . avoid the rest of England (too tiring) and speed instead to unique, relaxing Ambleside, where you will find fine food, wine and ale to complement the glorious lakeside mountain setting of this historic . . er . . sorry, prehistoric community. It was here before the Roman occupation, which lasted 400 years, it survived and prospered under the Viking invasion and it will be here after the tourist invasion, which so far has lasted only 200 years. (Blame Wordsworth for this latter invasion please, not the Tourist Board. As the French revolution cut off the English gentry from their European Grand Tour, their writers and artists began to extol the glory of Lakeland, creating as they did so the necessary myths which are their stock in trade and which survive to this day to persuade the discerning visitor of the rare quality of this landscape.)

Holding out stubbornly against this endless horde of apparently tireless walkers, climbers and futile seekers after the long-gone romance of the English countryside, the locals (peasantry, as the 19th century writers would insist) gallantly strive to ignore the alien cultures which mass tourism imposes on their quiet lives, complaining only, as they reap the doubtful material rewards, that “t’ spot’s thrang wi’ t’ boogers” (Eng. “there are rather too many of them, don’t you think?”)

So visit Ambleside before you die, everyone else does!

Rough Local Guide

So where is AMBLESIDE . .?

Practicalities – Where To Stay, Eating Out, Getting Around, and What To Do

History

People and Current Issues