Experience the best of Keswick

Keswick lies at the northern end of Derwentwater, in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, beneath the broad fell of Skiddaw. The town grew with the mining of lead, copper and graphite in the valley of Borrowdale, and it has made pencils since the nineteenth century. Its Moot Hall, dating from 1813, stands in the market place, and a museum tells the story of the pencil.

Friar's Crag, a short walk from town, gives the classic view across Derwentwater, with the fell of Catbells on its western shore. Castlerigg Stone Circle, a ring of thirty-eight stones placed in the Neolithic period, stands on a plateau ringed by fells. Borrowdale, to the south, leads to the slate quarries of Honister Pass, and Whinlatter Forest, above Bassenthwaite Lake, has walking and cycling trails.

Cumberland sausage, coiled in the butcher's window, rum butter, Borrowdale teabread and Grasmere gingerbread are the local foods. Borrowdale is among the wettest places in England, and the autumn colour of the fells is worth the damp.