Beatrix Potter & the Lake District Churches Tour

A tour of churches around Lake Windermere offers a unique way to step into the world of Beatrix Potter, weaving together sacred spaces in the landscapes she loved.

Many of the region’s churches hold connections to her life and legacy, from St Peter’s in Near Sawrey, close to Hill Top where she lived, to St Oswald’s in Grasmere where she often visited during her early explorations of the Lakes. You’ll visit historic stone churches set against dramatic fells and tranquil waters, discover memorials and stained glass windows that reflect the artistic heritage of the area, and gain a deeper sense of the community life that inspired Beatrix’s stories.

This tour blends literary history with reflection, offering travellers a chance to see the Lake District not just through Potter’s eyes, but through the enduring presence of its churches at the heart of village life.

The tour will take place on Tuesday 2 June, starting at 10.30am.

Tickets cost £57 per person (plus online booking fees), including guided coach travel from Windermere Train Station (pickup location), donation and guided tours at each of the churches, and a sandwich lunch.

This event will raise funds for the work of the National Churches Trust, supporting churches, chapels and meeting houses across the UK.

Jesus Church, Troutbeck

Nestling in the hills of the Troutbeck Valley, a Place for walkers and pilgrims to pause, reflect and find their eternal bearings.

The east window is by Burne-Jones, Morris and Ford Maddox Brown. Local tradition has it that William Morris and Ford Madox Brown came to Troutbeck on a fishing holiday while Burne-Jones was working on the window, and they stayed to assist him. Burne-Jones also designed one of the windows in the nave.

'I loved to wander on the Troutbeck Fell… more often I went alone. But never lonely. There was always the company of gentle sheep, and wild flowers, and singing waters.

– Beatrix Potter

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/jesus-church-troutbeck

Image: Peter Moore

St Mary, Ambleside

St Mary’s church was designed in the 1850s by the famous architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, it was the first in the north to be influenced by the ‘Oxford Movement’.

There is a memorial chapel to William Wordsworth, windows by Henry Holliday and a unique wall painting of the ancient Rushbearing Ceremony. The fourteen northern saints are carved into the choir stalls, including Cuthbert, Hilda Bede, Aiden and Columba.

Charlotte Mason and Harriet Martineau lived and worked in the village and Beatrix Potter who stayed many summers nearby as a child knew the church.

'You may leave the Lake District, but once you've been, it'll never leave you'

– Beatrix Potter

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-mary-ambleside

Image: Nil Fanion

St Oswald, Grasmere

This church is well known because of its associations with the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth, who lived in nearby Dove Cottage and is buried in the churchyard.

It is named after St Oswald, a 7th century Christian king of Northumberland, who is said to have preached on this site.

'When I was a child I used to watch for hours on summer mornings a green calico blind which I was not allowed to draw up. That blind held numberless pictures; and when I stared at the uneven plaster in Grasmere church this morning, I saw pictures – figures – angel heads – trees – But they were nothing; especially after comparing the symmetrical patterns at Hawkshead on my way back'

– Beatrix Potter

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-oswald-grasmere

Image: Ioan Said

St Michael & All Angels, Hawkshead

A church has stood on this site, a small hill above Hawkshead, for over 800 years with the present church being built around 1490 (parts of the tower are older) and little changed since the late 16th century.

William Wordsworth worshipped here when a boy at Hawkshead Grammar School. Beatrix Potter married a Hawkshead solicitor, William Heelis, in 1913, and settled into a life as a Lakeland farmer. She knew the church well and called their nearby home at Sawrey...

'‘A near perfect little place as ever I lived in.'

– Beatrix Potter

https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-michael-all-angels-hawkshead

Image: Ioan Said

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