Aira Force drops sixty five feet through a wooded ravine above Ullswater, often called the most famous waterfall in the Lake District, no small claim in a crowded region.

From the National Trust car park, paths wind through oak and pine to bridges at the top and bottom of the falls, better still after heavy rain, when Aira Beck earns its keep. Upstream sit the smaller High Cascades, easily missed if you do not know to look. The surrounding woods still shelter red squirrels, an increasingly rare sight in England. Below, at Ullswater's edge, steamers have called at the pier for generations, linking Aira Force to Glenridding and Pooley Bridge further down the lake.

VoiceMap's Lake District driving tour makes Aira Force one of fifteen stops shadowing William Wordsworth's old haunts, connecting the waterfall's woodland to the poet's Rydal Mount home and the Romantic landscape that shaped his work.