Windermere is a town of approximately 2,300 within the Lake District National Park in the county of Cumbria, in north-west England. Windermere town center is half a mile from Lake Windermere, the largest natural freshwater lake in England. Lake Windermere has been a rural summer and holiday resort since the mid-19th century, when a railway spur gave people from central England towns access to the beauty of the area.
The City of Windermere does not touch Lake Windermere. But it has grown along with the lakeside town of Bowness-on-Windermere. The strange combined city retains two distinct urban centers. Windermere railway station continues to operate today.
While there are many cultural attractions in the Wingemere area, none can match the beauty of the natural surroundings. The Cumbrian mountains surround the basin of the lake, in the center of which is the ten and a half mile long Cinta Lake: long, narrow and deep. Ribbon lakes formed during the last ice age and are canyons with a river at each end. A glacier would have carved a glacial channel through a vein of soft rock, creating a canyon surrounded by the harder rock of the mountains. Boats from Bowness Docks sail around the lake. There are 18 islands in the lake, the largest being 40 acres and privately owned. Two other towns are along the shoe of the lake, Ambleside and Lakeside. Sailing from one to the other is a great way to spend a summer’s day.
Since the 1950s there have been isolated reports of something strange at Lake Windermere. The story, documented by the Fortean Zoology Center, was not widely known until 2006, when a man and his wife reported seeing something large swimming about 100 feet offshore. This focused local attention on the lake and later in the year a photographer named Linden Adams took some photos which were picked up by wire services and the cable news network. The images have never been proven inauthentic.