The origin of the name is Old Norse Á-mel-sǽtr = "river — sandbank — summer pasture".
On their 2008 album CSI:Ambleside the British band Half Man Half Biscuit released a song entitled "Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show".
In 1911, the family was involved in a serious car accident near Ambleside in the Lake District.
Rushbearing ceremonies have survived, or been revived, in a number of towns and villages in northwest England including: Gorton, Littleborough, and Saddleworth in Greater Manchester, Newchurch in Pendle in Lancashire, Sowerby Bridge in Yorkshire, and Ambleside, Great Musgrave, Grasmere, Urswick and Warcop in Cumbria.
Fairfield Horseshoe is a classic circular hillwalking ridge walk route starting from Rydal or Ambleside in the English Lake District that takes in all the fells that surround the valley of the Rydal Beck.
This section of the guidebook is an ode in blank verse by Wordsworth evoking the hard ascent and joyful descent of Kirkstone Pass, a high mountain pass between Ambleside and Patterdale.
Recurring themes and characters in Norris cartoons included the sarcastic Amblesnide and Tiddlycove, a parody of the tweedy West Vancouver neighbourhoods of Ambleside and Dundarave; "Rodney", a caricature of an Anglo-centric monarchical Canadian; the "Socred cow" for the British Columbia government's liquor stores; and lampoons of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway.