Any hotel or guesthouse in the town
Staying in Kendal
The Auld Grey Town itself, the Oxenholme pickup and what it means for your week, Levens and Sizergh minutes away, and why the gateway town is a shrewd base.
Read the guideKendal sits just outside the national park boundary, and a good many experienced visitors stay here on purpose: better value, easier parking, a main-line station, and both the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales within half an hour. It is also our own base — the business is run from Kendal — so this is home ground rather than a guess. The area covered here runs from the town itself west into the Lyth Valley and north to Staveley.
Quick Facts
A quick orientation before you dive in.
Schematic — not to scale. Oxenholme, on the edge of Kendal, is a pickup point on our full-day tours. Windermere is about 20–25 minutes west.
The town has a wide spread of hotels, inns and guesthouses. This guide is written for all of them.
Any hotel or guesthouse in the town
The Auld Grey Town itself, the Oxenholme pickup and what it means for your week, Levens and Sizergh minutes away, and why the gateway town is a shrewd base.
Read the guideThree miles from Kendal, on the West Coast Main Line — and one of our tour pickup points.
The pub and the guest house
The Station Inn and the Glen Guest House, the Helm above the village, and why guests here can walk to three of our full-day tours.
Read the guideFewer than the Lakeland villages, and considerably cheaper — this is a working market town rather than a resort.
Kendal & Oxenholme
The town's independents plus the two at Oxenholme — where three of our full-day tours pick up.
Read the guideGuides for the hotels and inns our guests use most around Kendal and the Lyth Valley.
Eastern edge of Kendal
A Victorian mansion in landscaped grounds, minutes from the M6 and Oxenholme — the easiest arrival in the whole guide.
Milnthorpe Road, southern edge
Built in 1857 as an orphanage, now a hotel with a pool and spa — and a piece of social history hiding in plain sight.
On the River Kent, in town
A seventeenth-century building on the riverbank, with the Miles without Stiles path effectively outside the door.
Crosthwaite, Lyth Valley
Damson country midway between Kendal and Windermere — quiet lanes, good food, and blossom in April that nobody travels for.
Generally cheaper than inside the national park, and a good deal easier to park at.
Kendal, the Lyth Valley & Staveley
Which of the three bases suits you, the Kentmere Valley behind Staveley, damson country, where to do the big shop, and how tour days work.
The grand sweep: ten lakes, the high passes between them, and an Ullswater Steamers cruise exclusive to this tour. If a celebration stay deserves one great day out, this is it.
See dates & bookCollected at the door, your party only, the day shaped to you — literary landscapes, hidden valleys, or simply the most beautiful roads we know. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard in our vehicle crates.
Enquire about a private dayDove Cottage at Grasmere — entry included as standard — and the valleys that made the poems, with Dora's Field carpeted gold in daffodil season. The right literary day for this most Georgian of addresses.
See dates & bookAcross the lake to Hill Top and Near Sawrey, with our illustration-matching walk through the village lanes — back for a long lakeside lunch.
See dates & bookThe afternoon version crosses the lake by boat rather than by road — worth choosing if you'd like the crossing itself to be part of the day.
See dates & bookA slow hall morning, then eight lakes and their valleys at a seven-seat pace — the most civilised way to spend a Lakeland afternoon.
See dates & bookThe same eight lakes as the afternoon tour, run the opposite way round in the morning — ideal if you'd rather keep your afternoon free for the lawns.
See dates & bookA full literary day east to Haworth — the Parsonage, the cobbled village, and the moors that gave Wuthering Heights its weather, newly magnetic with the recent film. Oxenholme pickup available.
See dates & bookInto the Dales for Grassington's "Darrowby", the Wensleydale Creamery, Kilnsey Crag and Bolton Abbey — filming locations brought to life around you with live scene technology.
See dates & book