Ambleside Champion Tree Trail

A waymarked circular walk of 0.8 miles (1.28km) through Skelghyll Woods above Ambleside, with around 45 minutes a realistic allowance if you stop to look up. The loop returns to the same car park you started from.

From the Skelghyll Woods sign the path passes a picnic bench and a historic track, then climbs among conifers planted in Victorian times. The short steep pull leads into the Gallery of Giants, the heart of the walk, where Wellingtonia and Douglas firs stand alongside the tallest grand fir in England. Beyond the big trees the route passes a rocky outcrop, an old charcoal hearth and a further conifer grove, then levels off before a wide track drops back downhill beside a bubbling beck to the car park.

Rated easy overall, on generally wide, undulating tracks, though the path is narrow and bumpy in places. Total ascent is around 90m packed into a short distance, so the one steep climb feels harder than the mileage suggests. The steep section is unsuitable for wheelchairs or pushchairs.

The champion trees are the visual payoff, and placing a person at the base of one of the giants is the simplest way to give the scale of them in a frame.

Start and finish at the Stagshaw Garden National Trust car park off the A591, postcode LA22 0HE, grid reference NY38100290. It is small, with room for about eight cars, and Waterhead is the alternative parking area. Dogs are welcome on leads because animals graze here. Three picnic benches along the route make this an easy outing with children or a packed lunch.

The longer Skelghyll Woods and Jenkin Crag walk, roughly 1.5 to 3 miles, overlaps part of this trail and adds stepped woodland and rocky sections plus a Windermere viewpoint. It is a bigger outing rather than a simple extension of this circuit.