Hawkshead: The Wool Market, Tarn Hows and Getting There from Windermere

Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, inside the Lake District National Park, and it is small: one primary school, four public houses, and a parish that also takes in the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill, 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the north west, and Outgate, a similar distance north. Wikipedia places it in a valley to the west of Windermere and east of Coniston Water, just north of Esthwaite Water. Historically it is part of Lancashire rather than Westmorland, because it belongs to Furness.

You go for the shape of the place. This was a wool market before it was anything else, and what grew out of that trade is described by Wikipedia as a warren of alleys, overhanging gables and a series of mediaeval squares — the plan of a market town that then stopped growing. Much of the land in and around the village now belongs to the National Trust, whose holding here is called Hawkshead and Claife.

The straight-line distance from Windermere is 4.8 km, and Wikipedia gives no road distance between the two. One thing to know before you plan the day: the two highest-rated places recorded here are not in the village. Tarn Hows carries 4.8 from 1,861 Google reviews and Latterbarrow 4.8 from 203, and both are walks out of it.

The village: alleys, squares and four pubs

The fixed point is Hawkshead Market Hall, completed in 1790 and still in use — the parish council meets there. Around it are the alleys and squares, and the four pubs, and a short list of places worth naming.

National Trust – Tabitha Twitchit’s Bookshop, 4.4 from 751 Google reviews, is the Trust’s shop in the village; a visitor in March 2026 wrote, “A great place to visit and a good range of books for sale.” Chocolate Factory Hawkshead, 4.5 from 488 Google reviews, makes chocolates, truffles and bars on site and also sells gelato, and runs a course — a visitor in June 2026 reported, “You can book to do the chocolate making course it is well worth it.” The Queens Head, listed as a bed and breakfast at 4.6 from 1,736 Google reviews, is the best-reviewed of the pubs by volume, and its reviews mention the staff as often as the food: a visitor in July 2026 wrote that “They suggested coolest table in the heat and made a fuss of the dog”.

For staying, the pack records Hawkshead Hall Campsite at 4.8 from 335 Google reviews and YHA Hawkshead at 4.3 from 461, the lowest-rated of the group. That is close to the whole inventory the pack holds for the village. If you are expecting a town, this is not one.

Tarn Hows, Latterbarrow and the crowded car park

Tarn Hows is the draw, and it is National Trust land. It appears twice in the pack — as a tourist attraction at 4.8 from 1,861 Google reviews, and separately as a hiking area at 4.8 from 70, too small a sample to weigh on its own. What people do there is the circuit: a visitor in July 2026 described doing “the circular walk which was very easy and gave us lovely views all over the tarn”. There is a café — another visitor that month noted that “Joe’s cafe also supplied great coffees and baked goods”.

Two warnings come up repeatedly, and they are the practical content of the reviews. The first is that “easy” is relative. A visitor in June 2026, who had arrived early to avoid the heat, wrote: “More inclines than we thought and you’d need a steardy mobility scooter if you use one.” The second is parking and staffing. A visitor in July 2026 recorded, “Parking was quite crowded Info desk closed on Sundays so no national trust staff about” — worth knowing if you were counting on the Trust desk being open when you arrive.

Latterbarrow, 4.8 from 203 Google reviews, is the other walk listed, and the pack carries a rating for it but no visitor reviews, so there is nothing here about how hard it is or where you leave a car.

Furness Abbey, a wool market and a grammar school

The township was originally owned by the monks of Furness Abbey; nearby Colthouse takes its name from the stables the Abbey kept there. Hawkshead grew into an important wool market in medieval times, and then into a market town after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1532. King James I granted it its first market charter in 1608.

The other institution came earlier. In 1585 Hawkshead Grammar School was established by Archbishop Edwin Sandys of York, after he petitioned Queen Elizabeth I for a charter to set up a governing body. William Wordsworth, later poet laureate, was educated there, and he wrote about the place in The Prelude. Beatrix Potter lived nearby in the early 20th century, as did William Heelis, a local solicitor.

Through the 18th and 19th centuries Hawkshead was a village of local importance rather than a regional centre, and the 1790 Market Hall belongs to that period. The change that produced the village visitors see came in 1951, with the formation of the Lake District National Park: tourism grew in importance from then, though traditional farming still goes on around the village, and much of the land passed to the National Trust.

Getting there from Windermere

Wikipedia records one bus route serving the village: the 505, operated by Stagecoach, running to Coniston, or to Ambleside or Windermere. That is the single public service on record for Hawkshead.

Beyond it, this guide’s transport pack for Windermere does not mention Hawkshead at all: no rail connection, no ferry link and no journey time to the village are established there, so do not assume one. The pack does record a Windermere car ferry and a Windermere Bike Boat, both carrying bikes between the lake’s eastern and western shores, and Hawkshead lies on the western side — but nothing in it ties either boat to the village.

Getting as far as Windermere is the easy part. The town is the terminus of a branch line off the West Coast Main Line at Oxenholme the Lake District, near Kendal, with trains roughly every hour. Windermere station is 3.2 km from the Bowness centre point this guide uses, and its forecourt has frequent buses plus a taxi rank — which is where a bus onward to Hawkshead would begin.