A Victorian landscaped tarn with wooded islands and a fell skyline, circled by a flat surfaced path that almost anyone can manage. Here is the car park, how to pay, what is on site, and what the walk actually involves.
What it is
Tarn Hows sits in the low wooded hills between Coniston and Hawkshead, about two miles from each. It is a small lake with wooded islands, ringed by larch and spruce, with the Coniston fells and the Langdales on the skyline — and a flat, surfaced path all the way round it. That last part is why it is here: it is one of a handful of Lake District views you can reach with a pushchair, a wheelchair or a grandparent who is not up to a fell.
It looks natural and is not. It was three smaller tarns until the 1860s, when James Garth Marshall of the Monk Coniston estate dammed them into one to feed his sawmill and planted the slopes as an ornamental landscape. The National Trust has owned it since the 1930s, with Beatrix Potter in the story — more on that below.
Because it is easy and famous, the practical questions matter more than the scenery writing. Most of what people want to know is about the car park: how to pay, whether there are toilets, and whether the sat nav will actually get them there. So that is where this page starts.
You will see it spelt Tarn Howes, Tarn How and Tarn Howe. The National Trust sign at the car park says Tarn Hows, and so does the map.
Car park & getting there
Tarn Hows is signposted off the B5285 — the Hawkshead to Coniston road, also signed as North Lonsdale Road — roughly two miles north-east of Coniston and two miles north-west of Hawkshead. Allow about ten minutes from Coniston and sixteen from Ambleside. The last stretch is a narrow lane, and on a fine weekend or in the school holidays the car park fills by late morning.
National Trust members park free — scan your membership, or register it in the app where there is no machine. Blue Badge holders park free too, in designated bays. Everyone else pays on a tiered scale by how long you stay, by app or by machine depending on which system is installed at the time. Phone signal at the tarn is poor, so download and set up the app before you travel.
At the time of writing the National Trust lists payment via the JustPark app, location code 80693. The Trust is changing its parking technology site by site, so check the National Trust's Tarn Hows page for the current system and rates before you set off.
/// what3words — main NT car park ///crowns.spades.greet A 3-metre square. More precise than the postcode.The postcode usually given is LA21 8DP, OS grid reference SD 326 996. It is a rural postcode and it also covers Glen Mary car park at the bottom of Tom Gill — a different car park, at the bottom of a steep path, with no facilities. Use the what3words square or the grid reference, not the postcode alone.
There is a second, upper car park a little further up the hill with more accessible spaces — if the main one is full, keep going rather than turning round.
/// what3words — Glen Mary car park ///fail.protected.taker The other car park with the same postcode — the Tom Gill end.The Hawkshead–Coniston bus does not go to the tarn. It stops at Hawkshead Hill, about a mile away, and you walk up the lane from there.
The road is unsuitable for large coaches and there is no coach parking. Coach parties are generally dropped at Coniston or Hawkshead and walk in.
On foot from Coniston, the route in via Monk Coniston on the lakeshore is the best arrival of all — see the walk section.
Facilities
For somewhere this popular, the facilities question gets answered surprisingly badly online. The short version: yes, there are toilets. The block is at the rear of the main car park, and it includes an accessible toilet. There is nothing on the circuit itself, so use them before you set off.
The National Trust keeps Tramper all-terrain mobility scooters here, which is a large part of why the tarn matters: the surfaced circuit is one of the few Lake District walks a Tramper can do all the way round. They are collected from the kiosk in the main car park, advance booking is recommended, and the Trust asks for a donation rather than a hire fee.
There is a café — Joey's — at the crossover by the main car park. We saw the board and the queue on our visit, and the National Trust lists it on the Tarn Hows page with its own opening hours. Older guides say there is no café here and only a seasonal ice-cream van; that is out of date. Check the hours before relying on it out of season.
There are picnic spots all round the circuit — the grassy banks above the water on the southern side are the obvious ones, and the ones everybody uses.
The walk, in summary
The circuit is about 1¾ to 2 miles and takes most people around 45 minutes at an easy pace — longer with a picnic, and everybody stops for photographs. It is surfaced and mostly level, with one gentle rise on the western side, and it is genuinely pushchair- and wheelchair-friendly, which is rare in the Lakes and is half the reason this place gets searched for. Trainers are fine. Most people walk it anticlockwise, keeping the water on the left.
The view changes the whole way round: the islands from the south bank, the fell skyline from the north end, and the still-water reflections in the north-eastern corner on a calm day. Dogs are welcome and the tarn is popular with them.
This page is about the place. The Tarn Hows circular walk — the circuit, the Tom Gill variation from Glen Mary, and the longer approach from Monk Coniston on the Coniston Water shore — is written up step by step with the other walks from Hawkshead.
The Tarn Hows walk, and more from Hawkshead
On our visit on Sunday 30 August 2026 there were signs at the water's edge warning against letting dogs drink from the tarn because of algae. Algae blooms appear in Lake District waters in warm weather, can be harmful to dogs, and come and go — so check the signage on the day rather than relying on this page, and carry water for the dog. Cass, our Staffordshire Bull Terrier, stayed on the path.
The waterfall
Yes, there is a waterfall. Tom Gill is the beck that drains the tarn at its south-western corner and drops through woodland to the road at Glen Mary. Two very different ways to see it:
Signed off the trail shortly after the gate at the tarn's outflow — a few hundred metres there and back on a woodland path to the top of the falls. Not surfaced, but short, and fine for anyone steady on their feet.
/// what3words — Tom Gill turn-off, tarn end ///playful.baroness.gained /// what3words — the waterfall ///putty.stumps.permitThe path alongside the gill all the way down to Glen Mary car park is another matter. The National Trust rates it difficult terrain: an uneven path with two rocky scrambles, slippery when wet. Do not go down it in the pushchair, and do not frame it to the family as a stroll. Walked upwards from Glen Mary it is the classic way to arrive at the tarn.
Not to be confused with Gill Force in Eskdale, a different place on a different river. For the full picture of falls across the National Park, see our Lake District waterfalls guide.
The question people ask quietly
Two separate things, and it is worth keeping them separate. First, a fact: Tarn Hows is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated in 1965 — the National Trust's own history of the tarn records it, and the designation is about the tarn's unusually diverse aquatic and shoreline plants and the mires that feed it.
Second, guidance: the National Trust asks visitors not to swim here. We could not find a current published rule on the Trust's pages, so check the National Trust's Tarn Hows page for the position on the day. On our own visit there was no swimming signage at the water — which tells you about the signage, not about whether swimming is a good idea.
Not here, but these are. If a swim is the point of the day, the Lakes have plenty of established spots with car parks, safe entry and no conservation designation to worry about. They are all in our wild swimming guide.
When to go
Tarn Hows is open dawn to dusk and the car park is the constraint, not the tarn. On a fine weekend or through the school holidays it fills by late morning, the lane backs up, and the upper car park goes not long after. Arrive before ten or after four and none of that applies.
For the photograph everyone wants, the light is at either end of the day, and a still morning gives you the reflections. Autumn colour is the other reason to come: the larches turn gold in October and the tarn is at its most painted-looking. In winter the circuit is still fine underfoot — surfaced paths do not turn to bog — but the café hours shorten.
We went on a grey late-August Sunday and still shared the circuit with a great many people. It is not a place to come for solitude, and it does not pretend to be. Come for the fact that everyone in the party can do it.
Nearby
Tarn Hows takes an hour. The two villages either side of it, and the fells and tarns within a couple of miles, turn it into a day.
Two miles east — the whitewashed village with the Beatrix Potter Gallery, the Grammar School and the lanes. The bus from here stops a mile short of the tarn.
Two miles south-west — the Old Man, the lake, the Ruskin Museum and the steam yacht. Ten minutes by car, or a walk in along the shore from Monk Coniston.
Monk Coniston is the National Trust car park at the head of Coniston Water where the shore-path approach to the tarn begins. Yew Tree Tarn sits beside the A593 a mile west, with Holme Fell above it — a short, rough fell with a big view for little effort.
The flooded slate quarry and the cavern in the Tilberthwaite woods, a few miles north-west. Nothing like the tarn, and a good contrast to it.
Common questions
Keep exploring
The full circuit, its variations and the other Hawkshead walks — on our Hawkshead walks guide.
The Lake District's flat, surfaced and pushchair-friendly routes.
Tom Gill and the rest, from the easy ones to the scrambles.
The Old Man, the lakeshore and the rest, from the village.