The town of Keswick dates back about three thousand years, as a trip to the standing monoliths of Castlerigg Stone Circle will confirm. It is doubtful that the settlement was actually called Keswick at that time as the name actually means ‘Cheese town’ and the earliest cheese market was probably medieval.

Keswick played host to Celts, Vikings and then in Elizabethan times to German miners who worked the mineral mined in the hills. Evidence of this remains in the names of some of the streets in the town. At the end of Borrowdale valley on the summit of Honister pass is the re-opened slate mine with guided tours.

The beauty of Lakeland later brought many poets and artisans to Keswick; Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Ruskin and Walpole who is buried in the local graveyard.

The first graphite pencil was made here after farmers discovered a substance from under the ground which they used to mark their sheep. The Keswick School of Arts is internationally known for the decorative metalwork and work can be seen at the Pencil Factory Museum in the town centre.

The National Trust began on the other side of Derwentwater after a concerned groupof locals bought the area of Brandlehow to stop any future development. The National Trust now have to be thanked as they tend hundreds of square miles of Lakeland National Park.

We are justly proud of our new Theatre by the Lake which is an asset to local people as well as visitors. The theatre was built in the late 90's to replace the old 'Blue Box', a travelling theatre that had come to rest in Keswick. It was built with the local surroundings in mind, using nearby slate, local tradesmen and designers.