It rains in Keswick. The town sits at the head of Borrowdale, which is among the wettest inhabited valleys in England, and any honest guide has to start by saying that a week here without a wet day would be unusual. The useful response is not to hope for sun but to know what the town does well when the cloud comes down — and Keswick, precisely because it is so used to it, does wet days better than almost any comparable place.
What follows is the full indoor list, plus the walks and drives that still work when the fells are in cloud, and the things to do that are actually improved by bad weather.
Keswick made pencils for two centuries, and the museum built on that history is the town’s flagship rainy-day attraction. It is more entertaining than the subject suggests: a quiz that makes you read the displays properly, drawing stations, the story of the graphite found in Borrowdale, and wartime pencils with maps hidden inside them. An hour or so, and it is a short walk from the main car parks. Everyone in Keswick sends visitors here when the rain starts, so expect company in the school holidays. See the Derwent Pencil Museum page.
Optical illusions, an anti-gravity room and holograms, tucked just off the market square. Small, cheap by attraction standards and genuinely funny — the sort of place where adults end up taking more photographs than the children. Queues form on wet afternoons, and booking ahead in season saves standing outside in the weather you came in to escape.
The town’s local museum covers the geology, history and culture of the northern Lakes, and it was refurbished into a smart, calm, well-laid-out space with a good café attached. It is worth being clear about who it suits: this is a museum for adults and older children rather than a hands-on family attraction, and visitors with young children sometimes leave feeling short-changed. Go for the collection and the setting in Fitz Park, and take your time. More on the Keswick Museum page.
One of the best small theatres in the north of England, sitting on the lake shore with a year-round programme of drama, music, talks and film. A matinee is the most civilised possible answer to a wet Keswick afternoon. Check what is on before you plan the day around it.
A small private collection of toys, computers and objects from the 1970s and 80s on Main Street. Niche, cheerful and exactly the right length for a shower to pass.
Keswick’s Main Street has an extraordinary concentration of outdoor shops — a real advantage if you have arrived without a decent waterproof — alongside galleries, delis and independent bookshops. The Moot Hall in the market square houses the information centre. An hour of unhurried browsing is a legitimate wet-weather activity here in a way it would not be in a smaller town.
Six kilometres east. Much of the site is outdoors, but the sheds, the mining displays and the gold panning are covered, and the volunteers are the sort who will happily talk you through a wet hour. The narrow-gauge train runs in most weathers. It is the best rain-tolerant day out for families near Keswick.
Six kilometres west, above Braithwaite. Tree cover changes the experience of rain completely: the waymarked trails stay walkable, the red squirrel hides are worth sitting in, there is a visitor centre and café, and the mountain bike trails drain better than open fell paths. If you want to be outside on a wet day without being battered, this is where to go.
At the top of Honister Pass in Borrowdale, this is a working slate mine offering underground tours. Being underground is, obviously, dry. The drive there over the pass is spectacular in cloud, if you are comfortable with a steep single-track road.
Keswick Brewing Company runs a taproom in town, and Wild Sheep Distillery offers a small-scale look at spirit-making. Both are indoor, both are within walking distance of the centre, and neither takes long.
Not every wet day needs to be spent indoors. Some routes are actually better in rain — the waterfalls run, the crowds vanish and the light on the fells is at its most dramatic.
Avoid the high fells. Skiddaw, Blencathra and Helvellyn are all serious propositions in cloud, and the low-level alternatives in our walks guide lose very little.
If the weather is truly foul, the Borrowdale road is one of the great British drives and can be done entirely from a warm car: south from Keswick along the lake, past Grange and the Bowder Stone, up through the Jaws of Borrowdale, over Honister Pass to Buttermere, and back via Whinlatter or Newlands. Surprise View, on the branch road to Watendlath, is a viewpoint you can reach in about two minutes from the car park — though the approach road is steep, narrow and not suitable for anything large.
Parking. Wet days push everyone into town, so the central car parks fill faster, not slower. The Booths supermarket car park and Crosthwaite Road are the usual overflow. See parking in Keswick.
Cafés. Keswick has an unusually good café scene for its size — Lake Road Brunch, Java, Fabrica and Treeby & Bolton are all within a few minutes of the square, and the Chalet Tearooms and Lingholm Kitchen at Portinscale are worth the twenty-minute walk. Our eating and drinking guide has the detail.
Kit. If you are going to be outdoors at all, waterproof trousers matter more here than a better jacket. Every outdoor shop on Main Street will sell you a pair.
The mistake visitors make is treating a wet day as a day lost and trying to fill it with whatever is indoors and nearest. Keswick rewards a plan.
A good full wet day looks something like this: the Pencil Museum first thing, before the coach parties; coffee and a long browse through the outdoor shops and galleries on Main Street; lunch somewhere with a fire; Puzzling Place or Keswick Museum in the early afternoon; then a short, sheltered walk — Friars Crag and back, or the Whinlatter forest trails if you have the car — so that the day still contains some outdoors; and a matinee or evening performance at the Theatre by the Lake to finish.
A half-day of rain is easier. Rain in the Lake District frequently clears in the afternoon, and the standard local response is to do something indoors in the morning and keep the boots by the door. The Borrowdale drive is the perfect holding pattern: you can do the whole thing from the car and be out walking within ten minutes of the cloud lifting.
It is worth saying plainly that some of the best days here are wet ones. Waterfalls that are barely visible in a dry August become the main event: Lodore Falls, Moss Force above Buttermere, Scale Force near Crummock and the beck under Ashness Bridge all need rain to be worth seeing. Low cloud moving across the fells above Derwentwater does more for a photograph than blue sky ever will. And the paths empty — Catbells in drizzle is a different and much better experience than Catbells in sunshine.
Dress for it properly and a wet day in Keswick is not a consolation prize.
The Derwent Pencil Museum for interest per pound, Puzzling Place for entertainment, Keswick Museum for a proper unhurried hour.
Keswick Leisure Pool is on the north side of town, close to Fitz Park.
The boats operate year-round in normal conditions and have covered seating, though services are reduced in winter and can be cancelled in high wind.
Yes — with the caveat that you should book somewhere with a decent drying room and treat the indoor list above as the plan rather than the fallback.