November has a reputation problem. The summer crowds have gone home, it is dark by four, and a lot of people have quietly decided the Lakes are a May-to-September arrangement.
Their loss. November is the month the Lake District gets handed back to the people who live in it, and if you can put up with a bit of weather, it is my favourite time of year to be here.
Here is what is actually on.
1. Bonfire Night and the firework displays around Windermere
Bonfire Night falls on Thursday 5 November this year, and the displays round here are spread across that week rather than crammed into one evening. Which is useful, because it means you can go to more than one.
Thursday 5 November - Low Wood Bay, Windermere
The one over the water. Low Wood Bay runs its display from the shore of Windermere with a floating bonfire and fire pits going, and the fireworks themselves are scheduled for roughly 7.30pm to 7.45pm. Tickets start at £12.50 per person and include parking, and the Gallery Lounge opens at 6pm if you would rather watch it from somewhere with a roof.
It is the most photogenic display in the area by a distance. Fireworks over a lake do something that fireworks over a field simply do not.
Saturday 7 November - Windermere Rugby Club
This is the proper community one, and the one I would take the family to. Windermere RUFC's Annual Fireworks Extravaganza is at Dawes Meadow on Longlands Road, LA23 3AS, with gates and entertainment from 5.30pm. Three live bands, street food, real ales and mulled wine at the bar, then the fireworks.
Tickets are £10 per adult and £5 per child, with family tickets available from the club.
Worth knowing if you are staying in Bowness: Dawes Meadow is about a ten-minute walk from Church Street. You can watch the fireworks and be somewhere warm with a drink in your hand very shortly afterwards, which on a November Saturday is not nothing.
Saturday 7 November - Hawkshead
Village bonfire and fireworks at the recreation ground, which is exactly as lovely as it sounds. Open from 5pm, bonfire lit at 6pm, fireworks at 7pm, and it runs on donations.
Saturday 7 November - Park Cliffe, Windermere
Park Cliffe Camping and Caravan Park runs its own bonfire and fireworks, with the bonfire from 6.30pm and fireworks at 7pm. Handy if you are staying out that side of the lake.
2. Kendal Mountain Festival, 19 to 22 November
If you only do one thing in the Lakes in November, make it this.
Kendal Mountain Festival takes over Brewery Arts and venues right across Kendal for four days, and it is genuinely one of the biggest outdoor culture events in the world. This year it runs Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November, with over 200 live sessions, 300-plus speakers, 150-plus films, workshops, activities and a frankly unreasonable number of parties.
Day passes start at around £25. You can also just buy individual sessions if there is one film or one speaker you want, though I would say the festival is better experienced as a wander - book two things you definitely want, then let the rest of the day happen.
Kendal is about twenty-five minutes from Bowness by car, and the 555 and 599 buses run between the two. Plenty of people base themselves in Bowness and Windermere for the festival weekend rather than staying in Kendal, which is worth knowing when you are booking somewhere to eat - the whole area gets noticeably busier that weekend, and it is the one November weekend where turning up somewhere at eight on spec might not go your way.
3. The Christmas lights start going on
There is an unspoken rule round here that nothing festive happens until after Remembrance Sunday, which is 8 November this year. After that, it is fair game.
Ambleside Christmas Lights - Saturday 21 November
The third Saturday in November, every year, and the unofficial start of Christmas in the Central Lakes. Stalls around Market Cross and Market Place, street entertainment, Santa Cruises across Windermere from Waterhead, a craft fair at the Parish Centre, and the lantern parade in the early evening before Santa switches the lights on.
One change to flag, because a lot of listings have not caught up: there is no firework display at Ambleside this year. The committee has taken the event back to its traditional roots and is focusing on the switch-on and the lantern parade. If you have seen fireworks mentioned on a listings site, that is last year's information.
It is free, it is properly lovely, and it is run entirely on donations and fundraising.
Bowness Christmas market at The Glebe
Our own one. The Glebe Markets run through the year on the lakeshore, and the Christmas edition is the big one - dozens of stalls, Father Christmas, live music, festive food, free entry, right on Lake Road with the water behind it.
It has traditionally landed in early December, and the 2026 dates had not been officially announced when I wrote this. Keep an eye on the Glebe Markets Facebook page, and I will update this page once it is confirmed.
And the work Christmas do
Slightly less romantic, but November is when it actually gets booked. If you have been volunteered to sort your team's Christmas party, we run ours as festive sharing plates, cocktails and live music in a room that is yours for the night, with no hire fee and no minimum spend - groups of 10 to 35, from £35 per person. Here's how it works.
4. Short days, empty fells
This is the real argument for November, and it has nothing to do with events.
The fells are empty. Not quiet - empty. You can walk up Loughrigg or Orrest Head on a Tuesday in November and genuinely not pass anyone, which is an experience that is simply not available to you in July. The light is low and sideways all day, which is why every photographer you know disappears up here in late autumn. The bracken has gone copper. The becks are full.
Car parks have spaces in them. You can get a table. The lake looks enormous and slightly menacing, which is, I think, how it is supposed to look.
The trade-off is daylight. Sunset is around 4.15pm by the middle of the month and closer to 3.55pm by the end, so a walk that starts at one is a walk that finishes in the dark. Take a head torch, take more layers than you think, and start earlier than feels necessary. The fells in November are unforgiving in a way they are not in August, and conditions change fast up high.
If you want the full version of what there is to do around here year-round, we have a local's guide to Windermere and Bowness that covers the boats, the walks and the shops properly.
5. Where to eat when it goes dark at four
The thing nobody tells you about November in the Lakes is that the evening starts at half four. You come off the fell, you get changed, and it is somehow already night. Which means dinner stops being a thing you do after the day and becomes most of the day.
A few honest bits of local advice.
Book, even midweek. Fewer places are open through the winter and the ones that are get full, particularly over the Kendal Mountain Festival weekend and after a fireworks night. November is not August, but it is not dead either, and "we'll find somewhere" is how people end up eating crisps.
Check opening hours before you walk down. Plenty of kitchens cut back their days from November. Ours included - we are evenings only Monday to Friday, from 5pm, on weekends from 12pm.
Sunday is the big one. Sunday lunch in the Lakes in winter is a proper institution. Ours runs 12pm to 5pm, up to three courses from £23, with Lakeland lamb, sirloin of beef, pork belly, cauliflower cheese and all the trimmings, and then live music from 8pm if you are not ready to go home. The full Sunday menu is here.
For where to actually go, we have a full round-up of restaurants in Bowness-on-Windermere which covers the lot, from quick and cheap to a proper occasion.
And if you are after us specifically, we are on Church Street behind St Martin's, ten minutes' walk from Dawes Meadow, with three rooms, a fire, live music most nights and a menu that is built for exactly this kind of weather. Have a look at what we're serving.
See you on Church Street.