Jack was nine when I took him up his first proper hill. He’d never walked further than a car park, as far as I could tell. I picked Wansfell because Alfred Wainwright called it easy, because it was the first name on the list, and because if I’m honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was letting us both in for either.
Wansfell from Troutbeck
Route map and GPX
A short and easy Wansfell walk from Troutbeck, climbing by Nanny Lane to Baystones with the option of carrying on to Wansfell Pike. This is a good first Wainwright, with clear paths, modest ascent and big views for relatively little effort.
For the best ‘experience’ using the map, click on that box in the top left to go ‘full screen’ (Esc to come back). On mobile: Zoom by pinching and click to reveal names. Desktop: Hold CTRL and roll the mouse, hover to reveal a Wainwright’s name and see information.
Start
Summit
Water
Place of interest
Caution / Escape
Parking
Refresh
ToiletsReturn route at a glance
- Distance: 5km (3 miles)
- Ascent: 320m (1,050ft)
- Time: 2 hours
- Start: Troutbeck
- Difficulty: Easy
- Map: OS Explorer OL7
- AW Book: The Far Eastern Fells
Wainwrights
- Wansfell
Field notes
- Terrain: Lane, stony track, grassy summit ground and a boggier section higher up after wet weather
- Navigation: Straightforward, with Wainwright’s old directions to Nanny Lane still getting you onto the right line from Troutbeck
- Parking: Start in Troutbeck, near St Margaret’s Well and the entrance to Nanny Lane
Watch out for
The route is not especially demanding, but there is a muddy section on Nanny Lane after rain and the upper ground can be boggier than the mileage suggests. If you are doing it with children, it is still enough of a climb to feel like a proper little fell day.
Why do it
Because it is a very friendly way into the Wainwrights: short, rewarding, full of character from the old Troutbeck start, and with views that feel bigger than the effort needed to reach them. It also has that extra charm of being your first Wainwright, which gives the hill a bit more weight in the memory.
Dog friendly?
Yes, for most dogs in decent conditions. It is a short and fairly straightforward route, though the muddy sections and boggier ground higher up could be messier after rain.
Is this walk for you?
This is a very good walk if you want a first Wainwright, a family-friendly outing, or a shorter Lake District route with proper summit views. It suits walkers after an easy half-day rather than a big mountain challenge, and works especially well if you want something memorable without making the day all about grind.
Finding Wansfell from Troutbeck
In Alfred Wainwright’s first guide to the Lakeland fells — The Far Eastern Fells — he tells us that the entrance to Nanny Lane in Troutbeck is ninety yards from St Margaret’s Well.
A well? I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.
We drove up Bridge Lane into Troutbeck and it took a bit of map-reading to piece it together. The ‘W’ symbol on the Ordnance Survey map — that’s a well. Three of them, up here, where the hill filters the water. People of old knew exactly where to tap into it.
From the van, on the move, I pointed out a stone plaque built into the drystone wall. ‘St John’s Well’. Then further along, St James’. Then St Margaret’s. Amazing. There’s like clues leading to treasure.
So we found the well. But we’d driven the length of the road twice without spotting any obvious Nanny Lane and I was starting to think we might never actually reach the hill.
I’m a bit nervous, if I’m honest, taking my nine-year-old son on his first proper trek — and not just any walk, one of the Wainwrights. The biggest hill he’s been up. I told him it was easy. I hoped I was right.
Ninety-five strides up from Margaret’s Well, Alfred says, is the entrance to Nanny Lane. And would you believe it — in between two buildings, there’s a gate and a wooden plaque on the wall to the right reading ‘Nanny Lane’. Hurray.
The lane is like a stone track for the first stretch — you could probably drive it, though I’m sure you’re not supposed to, and I wouldn’t risk it in the Transit. There’s a muddy patch Alfred warns about, like a river after heavy rain. Not today. Two and a half kilometres up, a well-built stile marks the end of the track and the last push to the top.
Summiting Baystones
Less than a mile over quite boggy grassland. Follow your nose and you’ll find the summit marked with a cairn.
When we get to the top — Wainwright’s top, Baystones as the Ordnance Survey have it — I try to stall Jack so I can get the camera ready. Count the mountains, I challenge.
213, comes an answer, sharp as a tack.
We both placed a stone on the cairn. I’m later advised by some folk that doing this is defacing an ancient monument. What do you think?
Wansfell’s not the most challenging or dramatic of hills, but the views on what was a clear day were something else — North Wales on the horizon, the length of Windermere below, Grasmere and the western fells filling in everything else. Not bad for a two-hour walk from a car park.
That’s it. One down, 213 to go. A few weeks later, from a fella who asked to come along to my last Wainwright, I’d find out that this was the hill Alfred Wainwright first visited — that Wansfell was the place that made him fall in love with the fells, and set him off on thirteen years of writing. A bit of a coincidence, that.
Instead of Plan A — crossing to Wansfell Pike and dropping into Ambleside for lunch — we wandered the ridge for a while, up and down the hillocks, and celebrated with a tin of Ambrosia rice pudding behind a rock out of the westerly. Then we decided that descending the familiar path was probably ‘best for everyone’.
We slid down the slope on our backsides for a good stretch, ran hand in hand digging our heels into the grass, and quickly reached the gate from whence we came.
If you’re going to pay and stay, the Mortal Man in Troutbeck is walking distance from the start of this route. Good food and the right atmosphere after a day on the hill.
Low Wray camp site
I don’t think I could have found a better place to stay the night before climbing our first Wainwright. This National Trust site sits right on the shore of Windermere, and they have canoe hire on site — so we unanimously decided that ‘if we still feel up to it’ after the walk, we’d take a canoe out across the lake to celebrate our victory. We did.
We’d set the tent up in pouring rain, twenty yards from the shore. After Jack’s first ever Pot Noodle, the rain headed west. We had a grand view of Wansfell across the water — the hill we’d just come down.
BEFORE YOU GO
Every Wainwright. One Wall Map.
Halfway through the 214? Just starting? Or quietly pretending you’re not obsessed while knowing your exact total? This wall map shows every Wainwright on one beautifully framed sheet — built for planning routes, tracking progress, and slowly filling with colour as you go.
That’s it, one down, only 213 to go! I was told a few weeks on from this — by a fella who asked me to invite him to my last Wainwright walk — that Wansfell was the hill that Alfred Wainwright first visited, fell in love with it and these hills, and subsequently spent 13 years writing his books about them. If it’s true, that’s a bit of a coincidence. It turns out that Orrest Head was Wainwright’s first Lakeland fell (an outlying fell that didn’t make it into the Pictorial Guide) and what an interesting walk that is, with a beautiful view, I’ll have to write that one up a some point. But for now, on with the Wainwrights.
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