The Lake District is the wettest place in England, and Windermere is in the middle of it. Any week here should assume rain on at least two days, and the visitors who enjoy themselves are the ones who arrived expecting it.
The compensation is real: this is a landscape that looks better under cloud, the waterfalls need the rain to be worth seeing, and Windermere — as the busiest part of the Lakes — has more indoor options than anywhere else in the national park.
On Rayrigg Road between Windermere and Bowness. A modern museum of the lake’s boats housed in a striking group of buildings on the water — Victorian steam launches, racing motorboats, sailing yachts and working craft, several of them restored to running order, with a conservation workshop you can watch.
There are trips on a restored steam launch on the lake, which run in most weather. It is a considerably better museum than “boat museum” suggests and it takes a comfortable two hours.
Just south of Bowness. A house designed by M. H. Baillie Scott and completed in 1900, and among the finest surviving Arts and Crafts interiors in Britain — panelling, plasterwork, stained glass, inglenooks and hearth stones, largely intact and shown almost unfurnished so that the architecture speaks.
It has a view over the lake to the Coniston fells, a good café and an exhibition programme. If you have any interest in buildings at all it is the best two hours in the area.
At Lakeside on the southern shore — nine kilometres by road or the full length of the lake by boat. Freshwater and marine tanks, otters, a rainforest section and an underwater tunnel. Two hours indoors.
Next door is the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, a preserved steam line running through the Leven valley. A boat down the lake, a steam train and an aquarium is a full wet day and all three are under cover.
In Bowness. The tales recreated in three dimensions, with a tearoom and an indoor garden. Aimed at younger children and entirely indoors.
Hill Top at Near Sawrey, across the ferry — Beatrix Potter’s farmhouse, preserved as she left it. Tiny, timed entry, and the numbers are strictly limited, so book. Being indoors is the only sense in which it is a wet-weather option; it is worth going in any weather.
The Beatrix Potter Gallery at Hawkshead holds her original artwork in her husband’s former office.
Wray Castle, National Trust on the west shore, is a Victorian mock-Gothic pile largely unfurnished and given over to family activities, which makes it a good deal more relaxed than most historic houses.
Holehird Gardens, above Windermere, and Brockhole’s gardens are outdoor, but both have shelter and both are better in soft weather than in glare.
Sizergh and Levens Hall, towards Kendal, are proper furnished houses with substantial interiors.
Thirteen kilometres east, outside the national park and a real town rather than a resort. Kendal Museum, the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal Castle on its hill and the Brewery Arts Centre with its cinema and theatre — plus proper shops and a covered market.
It is the standard Lake District wet-day escape and it is a good one.
Worth knowing: Windermere Lake Cruises operate year-round and in most weather, and the boats have covered saloons. Sitting inside with a coffee watching rain move across the lake and the fells appear and disappear is genuinely one of the better things to do here in bad weather, and it is cheap.
The Lakes’ waterfalls need rain, and there are three within twenty minutes.
Stock Ghyll Force at Ambleside — fifteen minutes from the town centre to a twenty-metre fall in a wooded ravine, and spectacular in spate.
Aira Force on Ullswater, half an hour north, is the grandest.
Skelwith Force and the walk to it from Elterwater is short and sheltered.
Rydal Cave, near Ambleside, is a vast quarried cavern you walk into — dry by definition and rather magnificent.
Grizedale Forest and the woods around Claife Heights have tree cover.
Avoid the fells in low cloud. The Lake District’s mountain rescue teams are among the busiest in Britain and the pattern of call-outs is consistent.
Trains run from Windermere to Oxenholme and the main line, and buses run the length of the A591.
Check the mountain forecast separately from the valley forecast — cloud base is the number that matters, and a base at 400 metres means the valleys are fine and the tops are not.
Waterproof trousers matter more here than a better jacket.
Drying rooms are standard in Lake District accommodation. Ask when you book.
The shape that works: the Jetty Museum first thing, which is two hours indoors on the water and ten minutes from either town. Lunch in Bowness or Windermere. Then either Blackwell for the afternoon — the Arts and Crafts house south of Bowness, and the best building in the district — or a cruise to Lakeside for the aquarium and the steam railway, both under cover at the far end.
Finish with a pub. If the rain eases at all, add Stock Ghyll Force at Ambleside, which needs the water to be worth seeing.
The number that matters is cloud base, not rainfall. A base at 400 metres means the valleys and the lake shores are perfectly good and the fells are pointless; a base at 900 means you can get up something.
The Mountain Weather Information Service and the Met Office mountain forecasts both publish it, along with the freezing level and summit wind speeds — which are routinely double what they are at lake level.
The other local truth is that Lake District weather moves fast and varies enormously across short distances. Borrowdale can be under water while Windermere is dry. Waiting an hour is often the better call, and cheaper than driving to find the same cloud somewhere else.
The Jetty Museum and Blackwell for adults; the Lakes Aquarium, the World of Beatrix Potter and the steam railway for families; a lake cruise, which runs anyway.
Yes, year-round and in most weather, with covered saloons. Only high wind stops them.
An Arts and Crafts house of 1900 by Baillie Scott, above the lake south of Bowness — among the best surviving interiors of its kind in Britain.
Yes, in any weather, but it is small and entry is by timed ticket with strictly limited numbers. Book ahead.
Kendal, thirteen kilometres east, has museums, galleries, an arts centre and proper shops.