Armitt Museum

The Lake District


Despite some damage incurred during the 2015 floods, Ambleside's excellent little museum is now back up and running. It hosts some intriguing seasonal exhibitions alongside its core collection, populated with artefacts relating to important Lakeland characters such as National Trust founder Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, pioneering Lakeland photographers Herbert Bell and the Abraham Brothers and a certain Beatrix Potter, who bequeathed a number of botanical watercolours to the museum, along with several first editions of her books.

There are also original canvases by the modernist artist Kurt Schwitters, a German refugee who settled in Ambleside after WWII.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby The Lake District attractions

1. Bridge House

0.08 MILES

The town's best-known landmark is Bridge House, a tiny cottage that spans the clattering brook of Stock Ghyll. Now occupied by a National Trust shop, it's…

2. Galava Roman Fort

0.88 MILES

The foundations of Ambleside's ruined roman fort, built c AD 79, can be seen just west of the Waterhead jetties. The land is now owned by the National…

3. Rydal Mount

1.16 MILES

The poet William Wordsworth's most famous residence in the Lake District is undoubtedly Dove Cottage, but he actually spent a great deal more time at…

4. Skelwith Bridge

2.18 MILES

Three miles south of Grasmere, Skelwith Bridge is little more than a knot of cottages along the banks of the River Brathay. Since the 19th century it's…

5. Townend

2.47 MILES

This fascinating farmhouse offers an insight into Lakeland life c 1700. It once belonged to farmer Ben Browne and his family, who made a living by…

6. Dove Cottage & The Wordsworth Museum

2.58 MILES

On the edge of Grasmere, this tiny, creeper-clad cottage (formerly a pub called the Dove & Olive Bough) was famously inhabited by William Wordsworth…

7. Elterwater

2.69 MILES

Named by Norse settlers after the colonies of whooper swans that still swoop across its surface every winter, Elterwater (literally 'swan lake') presents…

8. St Oswald's Church

2.91 MILES

Named after a Viking saint, Grasmere's medieval chapel is where Wordsworth and his family attended church service every Sunday for many years. It's also…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "england/cumbria-and-the-lakes/ambleside/attractions/armitt-museum/a/poi-sig/1006126/358873",
      "destination": "The-Lake-District",
      "continent": "Europe",
      "country": "England",
      "region": "The-Lake-District",
      "position": "superzone"
    }