An Intoxicating Visit to England’s Lyrical Lake District : Romantic setting of Windermere abounds in reminders of Wordsworth and other great writers.

WINDERMERE, England — Few, if any, places are more dear to the hearts of bred-in-the-bone Britons than the green and gentle hills, weathered gray cottages and craggy peaks of northwest England’s Lake District. And in spring, there are the region’s endless fields, immortalized by William Wordsworth:

... golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The district has its Stone Age relics, pre-Christian monuments and 2,000-year-old roads from Roman times, but its renown dates from 1799, when Wordsworth settled into Dove Cottage in the lakeside village of Grasmere. Soon the district became a wellhead of the English Romantic movement. Indeed, the menage at Dove Cottage included Wordsworth with his wife and sister, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife, Charles and Mary Lamb, and Thomas De Quincey, reaching at times an assortment of nine under one small roof.

The cottage had been a pub 200 years before Wordsworth moved in, and had probably seen worse than De Quincey’s habit of seven glasses of wine a day, an addiction he shared with Coleridge.

Intoxicating in a different way, the surrounding lakes and mountains helped inspire the Romantics to some of England’s loveliest and most memorable poetry. Other authors followed, including the critic and painter John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit.

The district ranges only 30 miles inland from the Irish Sea to the west, and lies just south of Hadrian’s Wall and the Scottish border. Its Lake Windermere is the largest in England, its Cumbrian Mountains the highest. Yet everything about the lakes is on a human scale, to be appreciated without intimidation.

It is a place to don walking shoes, serviceable clothing and head out toward a neighboring village along ancient stone walls and hedgerows of roses, hawthorne, hazel and blackberries. Potter called the district a “land of stories.” Perhaps more are yet to come.

Getting settled in: Elegance without pretension sums up the Linthwaite House Hotel, built at the turn of the century as a private residence on a hill overlooking Lake Windermere. It has 14 acres of gardens and woodland and its own tarn, or small lake, where one may fish for brown trout. Owners-innkeepers Jean and Mike Bevans have decorated the bedrooms, dining room and sunny new conservatory with charm and flair.

If you’re seized by the urge to get away from it all, head straight for Grizedale Lodge, a former shooting lodge at the heart of Grizedale Forest. Take breakfast on the terrace and watch the red and roe deer roam in the woods. Or in early evening, pull up to the fireplace in an easy chair for a splash of the bar’s finest.

Bedrooms are cheerful, with views of the forest and the fells (rocky hills). Each room has a TV and a tray for making tea and coffee. The lodge’s dining room is considered a stronghold of Cumbrian cookery, with Grizedale venison, Penrith peppered lamb, lake trout and game pies of venison, duckling and guinea fowl. There’s nothing fancy at the lodge, just lots of comfort and good value.

Holbeck Ghyll, another impressive country house hotel, is in a woodland between Windermere and Ambleside. Built in the early 19th Century, Holbeck Ghyll is all gables, bay windows and ivy-covered stone, with warm wood paneling, stained glass, polished brass and inglenook fireplace within.

Bedrooms vary in size and decor; most have views of Lake Windermere. Menus in the oak-walled dining room lean heavily on Gallic specialties, and the wine book is formidable.

Regional food and drink: It is well nigh impossible to find a menu in the Lake District without Cumberland sausage. It is certainly never missing at breakfast, and with chips and peas is a staple in pubs. The reason is simple--it’s delicious. The local Cumberland ham has a dense, fine-grained texture, closer to Italian Parma than the bland English York variety. And with 5,000 sheep grazing in nearby meadows, most kitchens prepare marvelous lamb, the best we’ve had on our several visits to the lakes.

Britons really know their clarets, and have the fine cheeses to go with them. Try the blue or white Wensleydale, Cumberland garlic or the monarch of them all, the noble Stilton. A favored dessert hereabouts has the cutesy name of Cumberland rum nicky, a pastry shell filled with all sorts of glorious things. And the famous Grasmere gingerbread has been sold in the same small shop since 1854; before that, it was the village school.

Good local dining: For more than a decade, Rogers Restaurant (4 High St., Windermere) has been building an enviable reputation for food in the classic French tradition. It’s a tiny place serving no more than 20, with lots of flowers, candles on each table, a fleur-de-lis pattern on the walls and hand-written menus.

First courses include spinach pasta with Shetland scallops and langoustines ($9.50), andgrilled monkfish marinated with orange and grain mustard and served on green salad ($9). Main courses might be roast rack of lamb with an herb crust and Madeira sauce ($13.75), or halibut steak with apples, cider and cream ($12).

There can be few people on Earth who know more about beer than Nigel Stevenson, proprietor af The Masons Arms pub (Strawberry Bank, Cartmel Fell), since he stocks more than 200 brands from around the world and publishes periodic treatises on the subject. Further, Stevenson’s hurly-burly place has been chosen as one of England’s best pubs by numerous magazines and guides.

The food is very good, hearty and comes in downright trencherman portions. A choice of some 20 dishes appears on a blackboard by the bar and changes daily, offering such as braised ribs, beef stew and Cumberland sausages, all $9.50 and all piled high with assorted vegetables and salads. We even found our favorite Indian dish, rogan josh (lamb in a highly spiced stew), for the same price. Your choice of brew may include brands from Namibia, Nigeria or Zimbabwe.

The Linthwaite House dining room basks in an aura of quiet comfort and warmth typical of England’s best country-house hotels. Rich red carpeting, draperies and banquettes harmonize with gleaming furniture and sparkling crystal to give the room the patina of an Old Master painting.

A typical evening meal will surely include many fresh local products: lamb, wild mushrooms, lakeland fish and colorful vegetables. A starter could be a terrine of salmon, plaice and pistachio nuts wrapped in leek, followed by loin of lamb wrapped in a crisp philo pastry on a bed of zucchini with Madeira, or morsels of monkfish wrapped in bacon with a sauce of cognac and langoustines.

A Linthwaite House four-course dinner is $36, which also includes hors d’oeuvres plus coffee and petit fours in the lounge by the fireplace. There is also a broad a la carte selection and far-ranging wine list.

On your own: To get a feel for the Lake District and its literary history, stop first at Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum next door. The latter, new since our previous visit to the area a few years ago, is a fascinating display of manuscripts and memorabilia. There is also the annual Wordsworth Summer Conference (July 31-Aug. 14), with seminars, lectures and literary tours led by the likes of novelist Iris Murdoch and columnist Michael Foot. The all-inclusive cost (hotel, all meals) is $1,450; without meals and lodging, $530. Get more information and a brochure from: Wordsworth Summer Conference, Grasmere, Cumbria LA22 9SH, England.

You can celebrate the 100 years of Peter Rabbit this year (Potter began writing “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” in 1893) with a visit to the World of Beatrix Potter in the village of Bowness-on-Windermere, where films and videos tell the story of Potter’s life on a lakeland farm. Then enjoy the finest lake and mountain views in England by visiting Brantwood, Ruskin’s home on Coniston Water, where he lived, painted and wrote from 1872 to 1900. Brantwood’s former stables now house Jumping Jenny’s, a tearoom and brasserie .

Probably unique in the world is the Grizedale Forest Sculpture Trail, where renowned sculptors are in residence for up to six months using material from the forest floor to create works that fuse art with nature.

A rental car seems almost a must for the Lake District, but two local groups (among several) offer walking, sightseeing and cultural tours of the lakes, the first with varying degrees of difficulty. Call (800) 657-4888 to reach the U.S. travel agency that represents Cumbrian Discoveries, a British tour operator, for information on their programs this year. Or call English Adventures at (303) 797-2365 in Littleton, Colo., for a brochure on lakeland tours.

GUIDEBOOK

In Love With the Lakes

Getting there: British Airways began a nonstop LAX-Manchester flight (five times weekly) last month. An advance-purchase, round-trip ticket will cost $639. The 75-mile drive from Manchester to Windermere, almost all on the M-6 Motorway, takes about 90 minutes.

A few fast facts: Britain’s pound sterling recently sold for $1.63. Best time for a visit to the Lakes is from mid-April until late fall.

Where to stay: Linthwaite House Hotel (Crook Road, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria LA23 3JA, from U.S. telephones 011-44- 5394-88600; $115 double with full English breakfasts); Grizedale Lodge (Hawkshead, Ambleside, Cumbria LA22 0QL, tel. 011-44- 5394-36532; $98 double with full breakfasts); Holbeck Ghyll Country House Hotel (Holbeck Lane, Windermere, Cumbria LA23 1LU, tel. 011-44-5394-32375; $130 double, full breakfasts).

For more information: Call the British Tourist Authority at (213) 628-3525, or write (350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071) for the 48-page magazine on England’s North Country, including Cumbria and the Lake District, plus a map of Britain and other travel information.