Coniston Water G. Collingwood wrote a historical novel "Thorstein of the Mere" about the Northmen who settled on the island in the lake. The Victorian and Edwardian artist Henry Robinson Hall settled in Coniston during the Great War and is buried in the parish church graveyard. Arthur Ransome set his children's novel "Swallows and Amazons" and the sequels "Swallowdale", "Winter Holiday", "Pigeon Post" and "The Picts and the Martyrs" around a fictional lake derived from a combination of Coniston Water and Windermere. The fictional lake resembles Windermere, but the surrounding hills and fells resemble those of Coniston Water. Some of Coniston Water's
Swallows and Amazons Virginia McKenna (Mrs. Walker) and Ronald Fraser (Uncle Jim), and Sophie Neville (Titty), Zanna Hamilton (Susan), Simon West (John) and Stephen Grendon (Roger) as the Swallows. The 2016 film was directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and written by Andrea Gibb. The film stars Andrew Scott, Rafe Spall, Kelly Macdonald, Jessica Hynes, and Harry Enfield. In August 1999 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio adaptation by David Wood with Jean Anderson as Titty seventy years later narrating. Young Titty was played by Phoebe Phillips, John by John Paul Ekins, Susan by Flora Harris, Roger by Joe Sowerbutts, mother by Penny Downie, Nancy