About Keswick
The history, geography, and character of Keswick.
Keswick is a market town in Cumbria at the north end of Derwentwater, and it is said KEZ-ick, with the w silent. The 2021 census counted about 4,700 people, but the town's mayor told the Keswick Reminder in July 2026 that its population can quadruple on busy days. Skiddaw and Latrigg rise straight behind it, Blencathra is to the north-east, and Catbells is across the lake. The middle of the town is the Market Square and its Moot Hall, with Lake Road running down to the boat landings and the theatre. Borrowdale, Portinscale and Braithwaite are close by; this guide keeps to Keswick.
History & Heritage
The Moot Hall and the market
The Moot Hall stands in the middle of the Market Square, and Thursdays and Saturdays are market days, with Cumberland Council counting some 65 to 70 stalls along Main Street and round the hall. For years the building held the town's tourist information centre, run by the Lake District National Park Authority. That closed on 31 January 2026 after the Authority and the Battersby Trust, which owns the hall, could not agree rental terms; the Keswick Reminder reported the trust was marketing it at up to £48,000 a year. Since June 2026 it has been Twisted Willow, a cafe, Cypriot deli, pet shop and artists' marketplace, with visitor leaflets at the front. For a trial from August to the end of October 2026 the National Park Authority staffed an information counter at the exit of Booths instead.
Pencils
Keswick is a pencil town. The Derwent Pencil Museum, opened in 1981 by the Keswick Reminder's account, takes visitors in through a replica graphite mine and keeps what it calls one of the world's largest colour pencils, almost eight metres long, and the wartime pencils with maps hidden inside. It is moving: its last day at Southey Works is 1 November 2026, and it is due to reopen at Rawnsley Hall, an 1898 building that was once part of Keswick School, in March 2027; no date has been published.
The railway that became a path
Keswick had a station on the line from Penrith until the last train left on 4 March 1972, the National Park Authority records. The trackbed east of the town is now the Keswick to Threlkeld trail along the River Greta, rebuilt after Storm Desmond and reopened in December 2020 for all levels of mobility. Without a station, the town's link to the West Coast Main Line is the X4 and X5 bus from outside Penrith station.
Brossen
Cumbrian words still turn up in the town's names. The steak restaurant in the Inn on the Square is called Brossen, which the hotel explains as what locals say for full up: you leave 'fair brossen'. One of the hotel's two room styles is called Herdwick, after the Lake District's own breed of sheep.
Wildlife & Nature
Mammals
Sheep on the fells
Castlerigg's field is grazed by sheep, and English Heritage asks for dogs on leads there; the Inn on the Square names one of its room styles after the Herdwick breed.
All year
Birdlife
Dippers and herons on the Greta
The National Park Authority's railway path page says the fast-flowing River Greta along the trail is home to herons and dippers.
All year