Grange to Seathwaite
Staying in Borrowdale
Which hamlet is which, the Bowder Stone and Castle Crag, the rainforest oak woods, the valley's one shop, and how touring works from the head of the dale.
Read the guideKeswick and the northern lakes are a different holiday from the Windermere corridor — an honest market town rather than a resort, Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite instead of one long lake, and the big northern fells at the back of everything. It is quieter, emptier and, a good many people would argue, better. It is also a genuine distance from our scheduled departure points, which shapes how touring works from here.
Quick Facts
A quick orientation before you dive in.
Schematic — not to scale. Farlam Hall sits well off this map near Brampton, in Hadrian's Wall country. Our scheduled pickups are a long drive south, so private touring suits this whole area better.
The valley holds a string of hotels, inns and guest houses across half a dozen hamlets. This guide is written for all of them.
Grange to Seathwaite
Which hamlet is which, the Bowder Stone and Castle Crag, the rainforest oak woods, the valley's one shop, and how touring works from the head of the dale.
Read the guideKeswick has more guest houses than any comparable town in the Lakes — and the great majority of visitors stay in one.
Keswick town
Eight of the town's best-regarded independents, why guest houses outnumber hotels here, and the case for Castlerigg at first light.
Read the guideGuides for the hotels our guests use most around Keswick, Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite.
Beside Fitz Park, Keswick
One of the town's oldest hotels, in four acres beside the park — Castlerigg a mile out and the launches ten minutes away.
Portinscale, Derwentwater
Eighteen acres to the shore, a footbridge walk into Keswick, and the empty Newlands Valley just behind.
Borrowdale, Derwentwater
A large spa hotel where Derwentwater meets Borrowdale, with its own waterfall behind and the launches on the doorstep.
Near Bassenthwaite
Wooded country in the quiet north-west, with the osprey lake close by and Whinlatter forest to the south.
Bassenthwaite
A wooded estate with its own deer park — and one of England's few osprey breeding lakes on the doorstep.
Brampton — Hadrian's Wall country
Well beyond the national park, in north-east Cumbria near Hadrian's Wall. Private touring only from here.
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