Loweswater walk - Holme Wood walk

Route: Loweswater

Area : Western Lake District

Date of walk: 1st January 2026

Walkers: Andrew and Gilly

Distance: 4.0 miles

Ascent: 600 feet

Weather: Weak sun, inspid light, very cold

For our New Year’s Day we chose an old favourite, starting at Fangs Brow and descending to Loweswater. Fangs Brow is set in an elevated and quite remote position on the western edge of the Lake District. There are several roadside parking spaces at the start of the walk. We followed the obvious track, signposted for Loweswater, and set off along open moorland. As on the last occasion, we followed the route in an anti-clockwise direction in order to keep the best views ahead as we walked. The track is known as the Old Coffin Road from Loweswater to St Bees (the description is probably fanciful but the name has stuck)

Before long Loweswater appeared. The views become better and better on the approach to Holme Wood, and from a well positioned bench along the way there’s a superlative view over Loweswater to Crummock Water. The light was rather poor today, to see the view in better conditions, see my Holme Wood walk

We continued along the terraced path, which involves a few ups and downs, until we came to a gate leading into Holme Wood, owned by the National Trust. We followed a slanting path down through the wood. Sadly the National Trust has been obliged to carry out forestry operations here by felling all larch trees within 100m of a tree infected by the disease Phytophthora ramorum. Larch made up 75 per cent of the woodland and so the felling has been quite extensive, especially in the upper parts of the woodland. Nature will heal the wounds in due course, but the initial part of the descent is through a recently felled area. On the positive side this has opened up new views over Loweswater and the fells around it

On the last visit here we turned left at a junction in order to visit Holme Force (this is the route shown on the Maps Page). Today varied the route slightly by ignoring the junction and carrying down to the shore of Loweswater. We walked through Holme Wood to the head of the lake, which is unusual as it drains into lakeland rather than away from it as would be expected. We left the wood and followed a path through fields above Jenkinson Place as far as Iredale Place, where we turned left to walk uphill. The path brought us back to the Old Coffin Road and from here we retraced our steps back to the start

For other walks here, visit my Find Walks page and enter the name in the ‘Search site’ box

Click on the icon below for the route map (subscribers to OS Maps can view detailed maps of the route, visualise it in aerial 3D, and download the GPX file. Non-subscribers will see a base map)