page_title: Ambleside
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ambleside / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Shops in Ambleside
context_page_description: Ambleside is a town in Cumbria, in North West England.
  Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head of Windermere, England's largest natural lake. In the Lake District National Park, it is south of the highest road pass in the country, Kirkstone Pass and both places are the meeting point of well-marked paths and mountain hiking trails.
context_section_description: The town's name is derived from the Old Norse "Á-mel-sǽtr" which literally translates as "river – sandbank – summer pasture".
  To the south of Ambleside is the Roman fort of Galava, dating from AD 79.
  In 1650 the town was granted a charter to hold a market. In the reign of James II, another charter was granted for the town to collect tolls. The town's Market Place became the commercial centre for agriculture and the wool trade. The old packhorse trail between Ambleside and Grasmere was the main route between the two towns before the new turnpike road was completed in 1770. Smithy Brow at the end of the trail was where pack ponies were re-shod after their journey. With the coming of the turnpikes, the packhorse trains were superseded by horse-drawn stagecoaches, which regularly travelled between Keswick and Kendal via Ambleside.
  The Samling Hotel was built in the 1780s, then called the "Dove Nest".
  From 1894 to 1935 Ambleside formed its own urban district.
  Ambleside & District Golf Club founded in 1903 ended in the late 1950s; Windermere Golf Club is a few miles along the lake's east side.). 
  The Armitt Library and Museum opened in 1912 in memory of Sophia and Mary Louisa Armitt is notable as a resource for history. Its main resident collection overviews Lake District artists and writers with display panels, photographs and copies of their key works, and some originals of minor works.
caption: Rydal Road in the centre of Ambleside
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