Ambleside: A Small Town With A Lot Of Charm
The quaint little town of Ambleside is located in Cumbria, North West England, and is a fashionable vacation site for mountaineering, hiking, and biking. Its name comes from the Old Norse for “river”, “sandbank”, or “summer pasture”, and it is a fantastic location for a vacation, with Steamer rides to Lakeside and Bowness-on-Windermere for their views of the lake and surrounding mountains. The town also boasts a wide array of pubs, guest houses, restaurants and Hotels in Ambleside.
In the year 1650, Ambleside was permitted a market charter and established its Market Places, which swiftly became the town’s business center for produce and wool. In the early days of Ambleside’s history, the packhorse trail traversing Ambleside and its neighbor Grasmere was the only real means of travel between the two towns, until the advent of a turnpike in the year 1770. When solid, dependable roads finally arrived, the famous packhorses were turned obsolete. From then on, the road was utilized by stagecoaches running between Keswick and Kendal by way of Ambleside.
While not especially famous, Ambleside’s historical sites are still charming enough to deserve some attention. The old Bridge House was constructed above Stock Ghyll approximately three hundred years ago and was suspected to be an old apple storage house for Ambleside Hall. The townspeople purchased the site in 1926 and then proceeded to hand it over to the National Trust. Presently it stands as an information center for said organization. Believe it or not, Ambleside also contributes an entire college campus to the list of educational institutions in Britain. The University of Cumbria, formerly St. Martin’s College and then Charlotte Mason College, is located at the north end of town.
The most globally famous site in Ambleside territory is perhaps the house of poet William Wordsworth, called Rydal Mount. It is not located within town limits, but it is only a short distance away. The famous outdoor shops of Ambleside are important contributors to the tourism industry and have been since The Climbers Shop opened in 1959. The little town is also the location of Gaynor Sports, the largest independent outdoor equipment store in the UK, with five departments on three floors.
The Homes of Football photograph gallery came to Ambleside on Lake Road in 1998. The exhibit features the work of Stuart Roy Clarke and is presently the most extensive collection of football/soccer photographs worldwide. Another important component in Ambleside tourism is its pub scene. The town has an incredible ten pubs, which is a bit insane for a town only a quarter mile wide. But putting aside its commercial appeal, Ambleside is a fantastic little town that should appeal to the tastes of most any vacationer.
