Accommodation · Kendal & the South
Our own home ground: guides to where you are staying, from the people who live here
Main line
OxenholmeLondon, Manchester, Scotland
Windermere
20–25 minby road
Private
from £459collected where you stay
Small groups
7guests at most
Our base
Kendalhome ground
On the doorstep
Levensand Sizergh Castle
A tour from where you’re staying
Kendal is our own base. A private tour collects you from where you are staying in Kendal or Oxenholme, and some of our small-group tours call at Oxenholme station.
See tours and dates Book a private tourSmall-group tours from £79 per person · private from £459 per group
Kendal 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.
The town, Oxenholme, the Lyth Valley and Staveley, with Levens and Sizergh to the south. Tap a number for its name.
Pins pushed apart where places sit close together; a thin line runs to the true spot. Longlands is further south, off the map. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
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.
Three miles from Kendal, on the West Coast Main Line — and one of our tour pickup points.
1 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.
Fewer 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 some of our tours pick up.
Guides for the hotels and inns our guests use most around Kendal and the Lyth Valley.
2 Eastern edge of Kendal
1.5 miles from the town centre
A Victorian mansion in landscaped grounds, minutes from the M6 and Oxenholme — the easiest arrival in the whole guide.
3 Milnthorpe Road, southern edge
15 min walk into town
Built in 1857 as an orphanage, now a hotel with a pool and spa — and a piece of social history hiding in plain sight.
4 On the River Kent, in town
The most walkable Kendal base
A seventeenth-century building on the riverbank, with the Miles without Stiles path effectively outside the door.
5 Crosthwaite, Lyth Valley
5 miles from each town
Damson country midway between Kendal and Windermere — quiet lanes, good food, and blossom in April that nobody travels for.
Tewitfield, on the Lancaster Canal
20 mins to Oxenholme
A family-run inn beside the Lancaster Canal a minute from the M6 — Leighton Moss and the Silverdale coast ten minutes west, Kendal twenty north, Oxenholme for our tour pickups there.
Generally cheaper than inside the national park, and a good deal easier to park at.
Kendal, the Lyth Valley & Staveley
Apartments, cottages & farm conversions
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.
Some of our tours call at Oxenholme station; the rest start at Windermere, about twenty minutes away. Each tour page lists the pickups that tour uses. Any of these can also run privately, collected from where you are staying in Kendal or Oxenholme.
Any of our tours, run privately: your own guide and vehicle, collected from your hotel, guest house or cottage in Kendal or Oxenholme, on the date that suits you, with nobody aboard you did not bring.
Staying out in the Lyth Valley, at Staveley or further south? A private tour collects you there as a full day, or we plan a bespoke tour; tell us where, and we confirm the pickup and times.
Arriving by train? We can collect your party at the station, go straight out on tour, and leave you at your accommodation at the end of the day.
With six or seven of you, a private tour costs less per person than the small-group tour.
See private toursTailor-made for each booking: the places and the people you most want to see. Tell us where you are staying, and we confirm the pickup and times before anything is booked.
Plan a bespoke tourThis page was checked by Gillian in .
Levens Hall topiary: Kevin Waterhouse, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Tour photographs are credited on each tour page.
