Lake District Gems | a blog about the Lakes
A blog exploring the Lake District's hidden gems and best-kept secrets
One of the very first posts I wrote for the blog was a list of 10 things to do in the Lake District on a rainy day. We do get quite a few wet days here, but, as they say, the Lake District wouldn’t be the Lake District without them! Since writing that post however, […]
I’ve wanted to visit Mirehouse for a long time, and one beautiful sunny Saturday in July, my gem-hunting companion and I decided we’d risk the busy weekend traffic (which curiously turned out to be almost non-existent that day) and head north to Bassenthwaite. We thoroughly enjoyed our look around Mirehouse, but the house itself forms […]
When I recently discovered that January is ‘Hot Tea Month’, I thought, now there’s a subject for a blog post! Although I’m not entirely sure how or where Hot Tea Month first came about – online sources seem to suggest it may have been the USA – here are some of my favourite stopping off […]
At the end of the season, a number of the Lake District’s historic houses shut for the winter, however, Blackwell, just outside Bowness-on-Windermere, is an exception that is well worth visiting at any time of year. Blackwell is a famous example of a house from the Arts and Crafts movement, and was built in 1900 […]
Recently I wrote about my rediscovery of the Coniston area after not having visited for some years. I enjoyed the scenery from on board the National Trust’s Steam Yacht Gondola so much that I returned just two days later to visit another of Coniston’s local gems, Brantwood. Brantwood is a house and 250-acre fellside estate […]
If, like me, you’re interested in all things Beatrix Potter, the Lingholm Kitchen and Walled Garden at Portinscale – which is on the north-western shore of Derwentwater, near Keswick – should be high on your list of places to visit next time you’re exploring the Lake District. The main house at Lingholm was built in […]
In my opinion, one of the best ways to enjoy the outstanding scenery around Coniston is from Coniston Water itself, so if you’re looking for a unique, relaxing (and dry) way to do this, a trip on board the National Trust’s Steam Yacht Gondola won’t disappoint! It was with just seconds to spare that I […]
One of the Lake District’s most celebrated gems and once the home of William Wordsworth, Dove Cottage lets you discover more about the man behind the poetry.
It just goes to show – however much you think you know a place, there’s always something new to be discovered! I’ve been visiting Rydal Hall in Rydal, near Grasmere, for several years now, and it’s a gem of a place that not everyone has come across. But what I didn’t realise until the beginning […]
If you visit the blog on a regular basis, you’ll know that I love to visit gardens, but despite having been to Holker Hall and the annual Holker Garden Festival on several occasions, I’d never actually visited the gardens until last weekend. I expected the gardens to be good, but didn’t realise just how much […]
I was sitting inside working on what was forecast to be one of the last warm, sunny days of the year, when I suddenly realised it. There wasn’t one thing I was doing that couldn’t wait until the cloudy days at the weekend! So although time was getting tight, I headed out for a short […]
I love seeing a project that is someone’s obvious passion, and this is certainly what I saw on a visit to Larch Cottage Nurseries in Melkinthorpe, near Penrith. The nursery is a real hidden delight for gardeners and anyone else who just fancies a peaceful escape for an hour or two in a fascinating and […]
The newly rebranded Laura Ashley The Belsfield Hotel, was first built as a private house for the Baroness von Sternberg in the 19th century. The Belsfield is now operated by Corus Hotels, and is only the second Laura Ashley-branded hotel, the other being The Manor in Elstree. I’ve been meaning to visit for some time […]
The Rheged Centre, which can be found just off the A66 outside Penrith, is an impressive and unusual building, designed to blend in with the grass landscape that surrounds it. The main entrance is vast and surrounded by stone – appearing to be set in a hillside, I would describe it as rather ‘castlesque’, with […]
If you’re a keen gardener, you may already have come across the National Garden Scheme’s (NGS) Yellow Book or even visited some of the many gardens that open each year across the UK to raise money for charity. It was great to see the 2015 Cumbria NGS guide appear in leaflet racks across the county […]