Windermere Lake Cruises
England's biggest lake from the deck of a proper boat, with red, yellow and green routes so you can pick a 45-minute hop or a full lake cruise. Combo tickets pair it with the aquarium or the steam railway.
Holehird Gardens
Windermere & Bowness, Cumbria
Holehird runs ten acres up the fellside with Windermere laid out below. It is an RHS Partner Garden and holds six National Plant Collections, which matters more to the adults than the children, but the terraces, walled garden and glasshouses give small people plenty to charge around.
The money side is unusually relaxed. There is no ticket. The Society suggests a minimum of six pounds per adult, children go free, and parking outside the walled garden costs nothing with overflow space when it is busy. Note that the published suggestion still says 2025, so treat six pounds as a floor and read the sign on the day.
Volunteers staff the visitor information point from 10am to 4pm, April to October, where you can pick up a children's trail and buy a tea, coffee or hot chocolate. There is an accessible toilet in the courtyard on a RADAR key. The gardens themselves are open dawn to dusk all year. Dogs are banned except assistance dogs, and the upper fell paths are steep and stepped, so the walled garden is where wheels and toddlers belong.
Know before you go
- Come between April and October if you want the children's trails and a hot drink, because the visitor point is only staffed 10am to 4pm in those months. The gardens themselves are open dawn to dusk all year.
- The walled garden is mostly accessible and the main drive is a gentle slope, but the rockery and fell border paths have steps and steep uneven sections. Leave the pushchair by the walled garden.
Seasonal: Gardens open daily, info point April to October. Check before travelling.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Windermere & Bowness?
Also in Windermere & Bowness
Brockhole on Windermere
The national park's visitor centre with treetop nets, archery, mini golf, boat hire and a big adventure playground running down to the lake shore. Free to wander; the activities are pay-as-you-go.
The World of Beatrix Potter
Peter Rabbit's world recreated in walk-through scenes, ending in the garden with Mr McGregor's vegetables. Squarely for the under-8s; it is small, sweet and unashamed of it.
Orrest Head
The classic first family fell: a short climb from Windermere village to a proper summit with the whole lake and the high fells laid out below. A surfaced accessible path now runs all the way up, though it is still a real 120-metre climb, not a stroll.
Windermere Jetty Museum
Lakeland Arts keeps Windermere's historic boats floating under cover in a wet dock on the Bowness lakeshore, so children see them in water and not propped on stands.