5 secret pretty places to visit in Cumbria

Nobody is questioning Wordsworth’s verity when he wrote of the Lake District as being the “loveliest spot that man hath ever found.” The problem is that – in peak summer season at least – far too many people are straining their cars around the narrow lanes of the National Park area to confirm that he was right.

We love Beatrix Potter’s humble home, Lake Windermere and even the Derwent Pencil Museum isn’t as dull as you might think. But there are huge swathes of Cumbria, particularly around the coastal areas, that hit beatific heights every bit as poetic as Wordsworth’s paeans to the region, but where there are almost no crowds at all to swerve. Here are five of our favourite, lesser-known spots.