Directions and Parking
Leave the M6 at J36 and take A590/A591 to Ambleside skirting round Kendal and Windermere.
From Ambleside follow signs for Coniston A593, over Rothay Bridge into Clappersgate. Take the first sharp left turning down the hill on to the B5286, signposted Hawkshead. The Church is located in the centre of the village.
Use the Pay and Display car park in the village centre.
Information
Hawkshead was an important wool centre in the Middle Ages, and the area contains many fine examples of the Lakeland vernacular architecture, not least the church, which was built in around 1300 on the site of a Norse Chapel. The bulk of the building, as it exists today, is 16th and 17th century. The Chapelry of Hawkshead was formed into a parish in 1578 by Archbishop Edwin Sandys of York, who was born near Hawkshead. He also founded and financed the former Grammar School which is now a museum, where William Wordsworth studied between 1778 and 1787.
