The country around Kendal holds a great deal of self-catering and almost none of the competition you get inside the national park: apartments in the town itself, stone cottages through the Lyth and Winster valleys, and a cluster around Staveley on the eastern edge of the Lakes. It is generally cheaper, easier to park at, and closer to the Yorkshire Dales than anywhere on a lake. This guide is for anyone with a key to one of them.
Quick Facts
Kendal itself suits people who want to walk to a restaurant. Apartments in the centre put the river, the castle, the Brewery Arts Centre and a proper high street on foot, and Oxenholme is a short ride for tour days.
The Lyth and Winster valleys are the quiet option — narrow lanes, small farms, damson orchards and a handful of very good pubs, roughly midway between Kendal and Windermere. You will want a car, and you will not see many other visitors.
Staveley is the compromise, and a clever one: just inside the national park on the eastern edge, with a disproportionately good food scene for a village its size, the Kentmere Valley running north behind it, and the Windermere road minutes away.
The valley behind Staveley is a dead end — the road stops at the hamlet and the fells close in — and that single fact keeps it among the quietest valleys in the national park. The Kentmere Horseshoe is a serious high-ridge day for experienced walkers; for everyone else the valley road and the reservoir at the head make a lovely slow hour. There is no shop, no café and very little parking, which is part of the appeal and worth planning around.
If your cottage is anywhere in the Lyth or Winster valleys you are in damson country, and the timing matters. Late March into April the orchards blossom — a genuinely spectacular few weeks that almost nobody outside Cumbria travels for. Come in September and the fruit is at farm gates and in every pub kitchen, turned into jam, chutney, pies and gin.
Supplies: Kendal has the big supermarkets and is far easier to park in than Windermere or Ambleside. Do the main shop on the way in, and top up at Staveley or the village shops after.
Eating out: better than you would expect. Kendal has proper independents; the Lyth Valley pubs punch well above their weight; Staveley has a bakery, a brewery taphouse and a chocolatier in a village of a few hundred people; and Cartmel, with its Michelin-starred kitchen, is under half an hour south.
Rain: the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal does food, film and theatre under one roof, and Abbot Hall and the Quaker Tapestry are both indoors and both good.
Dogs: a high proportion of cottages here take them — and well-behaved dogs are welcome on our private tours.
Levens Hall holds the oldest topiary garden in the world, laid out in the 1690s and clipped ever since. Sizergh Castle is a medieval pele tower grown into a seven-hundred-year family house, with limestone gardens and good wildlife. Both are minutes from Kendal, both are places we run tours to, and both make an easy half-day when the fells are under cloud.
The lakes are twenty minutes and the Yorkshire Dales are closer still — but the driving and the parking are the least enjoyable part of either. Oxenholme picks up our full-day tours; private days can collect at your cottage.
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 & bookFor a cottage week with no fixed plans, a private day is the easy option — collected at the door, no departure time to drive to, and a route built around whether you want the lakes, the Dales or the houses south. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard, travelling safely in our vehicle crates.
Not sure which route suits your plans, or want a day built entirely from scratch — a family reunion, a wedding anniversary, scattering ashes somewhere that mattered? Tell us what you have in mind and we'll design a day around it — see our guide to celebrating a special occasion for ideas, or get in touch directly.
Generally yes, and often noticeably so — you are outside the national park boundary, where prices drop and availability improves. For a week with a family, the difference can pay for several tour days.
Kendal for apartments and town convenience; the Lyth and Winster valleys for quiet cottages in damson country; Staveley if you want to be inside the national park with a good food scene and the Kentmere Valley behind you.
On private tours, usually yes — we can collect at your cottage. Oxenholme, near Kendal, is a pickup on our full-day tours; Windermere station, Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library serve the rest.
Kendal, comfortably — it has the largest supermarkets in the area and is far easier to park in than anywhere inside the park. Do it on the way in.
Yes — Staveley sits just inside the national park boundary on the eastern edge, which makes it a useful compromise: park prices without park parking problems.
We are an independent local tour operator, based in Kendal. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by any cottage owner or letting agency in the area.