Stockgyhll Force waterfall Ambleside

This is another walk from the Walks to Waterfalls book, you should by now be realising that certain members of the family love a good waterfall.

This is a walk of about 2.5 miles and at a steady pace should take you no longer than 1.5 hours.

The instructions in the book state to start out from the main car park in Ambleside which is just north of the town centre on the A591, there are plenty of other places around Ambleside to park should this be full and its not a long walk from any of the alternatives to the start point of the walk.

The walk starts from the main road at the north/top end of town close to the Salutation Hotel and leads up a lane on the left immediately after Barclays Bank and take the next lane on your left, here you will see a sign for the waterfall. Follow this sign along the track up a steady incline until you reach another and follow the Stock Ghyll upstream following the red markers.

Stockghyll force waterfall from one of the viewpoints

As you proceed you will reach a couple of view points that provide the opportunity for good photographs before reaching a fork in the path, for now ignore the path to the right and continue upstream until you reach the bridge over the waterfalls. This again is a good photo opportunity and although there wasn't a huge amount of water passing through as the weather had been so dry you can imagine what it would be like after a prolonged period of rain.

The walk now makes a U-turn back to the fork in the path you passed earlier, around this point there are some picnic benches should the kids need feeding, ours for once didn't at this point so we carried on!

At the fork you need to head of left towards a revolving gate in the wall ahead, pass through the gate along a narrow path that leads to a surfaced lane at which point you turn left and gently climb uphill along the side of the valley.

After about a kilometre you pass the entrance to Low Grove House and cross over a cattle grid at which point turn left and head through a gate down the grassy path to a bridge over Stock Ghyll.

Once over the bridge head left again alongside the water to a gate in the wall, don't go through the gate instead follow the path that goes uphill towards the farm, As you near the farm go through the gate and follow the farm track down the road. 200 metres down the road a rough tracks appears on the right, take this track. It goes through a couple of gates and follows a wall on your left.

Our two dogs Max and Pippa having a rest while we take in the view

go through  a small gated stile and walk downhill to a tiny bridge over a tiny beck through another stile this leads to a clear track on the edge of Ambleside. This leads to a quiet road which in turn heads back to Ambleside.