Aira Force and Gowbarrow

Aira Force drops around 20 metres through a narrow, wooded ravine into Ullswater, and has been a sightseeing stop since Victorian times, when the National Trust’s predecessor bought the surrounding Gowbarrow Park in 1906 and laid out the paths, viewing platforms and bridges still in use today. It sits on the northern shore of Ullswater near Dockray, with its own car park, café and toilets at the National Trust site.

The core walk from the car park to the falls and back is short and stays on maintained paths, and it is one of the easiest beauty spots in the Lakes to reach with children or limited time. Walkers who want more can continue up onto Gowbarrow Fell itself, a modest 481m Wainwright, on rougher, boggier paths with views over Ullswater; that extension turns an easy half-hour into a half-day and is a different proposition entirely from the waterfall walk on its own.

William Wordsworth is thought to have been inspired to write “Daffodils” after seeing them growing wild with his sister Dorothy on the Ullswater shore near where Aira Beck enters the lake, close to this spot, and the poem is referenced on interpretation boards around the site.

This suits families, first-time visitors to the Lakes, and anyone wanting a waterfall and woodland walk without committing to a fell. It does not suit anyone wanting solitude: the car park and paths are among the busiest National Trust sites in the region, especially in school holidays. Stanley Ghyll Force is a comparable ravine walk with a fraction of the traffic, though it is 27 kilometres away across the middle of the Lakes and the drive is the cost.