Staying in · Kendal
Staying in Kendal —
A Local Guide
From the people who drive these roads every day
Staying in · Kendal
From the people who drive these roads every day
Oxenholme
Edge of townon the main line
Levens & Sizergh
Minutessouth
Nearest pickup
Oxenholmestation
Private tour
£459per group, collected
The Dales
Closerthan from Windermere
Small groups
7guests at most
A private tour from Kendal
Book any of our tours as a private tour, collected from your accommodation, for your party alone — or have a bespoke tour planned around your stay.
Book a private tour Plan a bespoke tourPrivate from £459 per group · small-group tours from £79 per person
Kendal is the town most visitors drive through on the way to somewhere prettier, which is their loss and, if you have booked here, your gain. It is the gateway to the Lake District rather than part of it: cheaper, quieter, easier to park in, on the West Coast Main Line, and within half an hour of both the lakes and the Yorkshire Dales. It is also where we are based. This guide is written by people who live and work here.
Kendal is built from local limestone, which gives it the grey, sober look that earned the nickname — and which is rather handsome in the right light. It made its money from wool: "Kendal Green" cloth was well enough known that Shakespeare put it in Henry IV. The town's yards, the narrow passages running off the main streets, are a survival of that period and worth ten minutes' wandering. The castle ruins on the hill above are free, open and give the best view of the whole town; Katherine Parr's family held it, though the story that she was born there is a good deal shakier than the guidebooks suggest.
This is Kendal's strongest card and most visitors miss it entirely. Levens Hall, a few miles south, has the oldest topiary garden in the world — laid out in the 1690s and continuously maintained ever since, which makes it a living object roughly three hundred and thirty years old. Sizergh Castle, closer still, is a medieval pele tower grown into a family house, held by the Strickland family for some seven hundred years, with limestone gardens and really good wildlife. We run tours to both.
Oxenholme sits on the edge of Kendal on the West Coast Main Line, which means direct trains from London, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh — you can be here from Euston in under three hours. It is also a pickup on some of our tours: the 10 Lakes Tour, Brontë Country and All Creatures Great and Small all collect at Oxenholme. If you are staying in Kendal, that is a real convenience, and it is worth planning the week around which days those tours run.
From Kendal the Yorkshire Dales are nearer than the western Lakes — the road east through the Lune Valley gets you into limestone country quickly. That is why our Brontë Country and All Creatures Great and Small days pick up here: you are pointed the right way to start with. If you have any interest in the Dales at all, a Kendal base makes them easy rather than an expedition.
Kendal has a better independent food scene than its reputation suggests — proper bakeries, a decent market, and the Brewery Arts Centre doing food, film and theatre in one place. And yes, Kendal Mint Cake is real, still made here, and was carried up Everest in 1953. It is not confectionery so much as portable glucose, and it tastes exactly like that, which is the point.
The lakes themselves are twenty-odd minutes away, and the driving and parking are the least pleasant part of visiting them in season. Our small-group tours carry seven guests at most; full-day tours collect at Oxenholme, and private days collect at your accommodation.
Any of these can run privately, collected from your accommodation, for your party alone. Our nearest small-group pickup is Oxenholme station, on the edge of town, for some of our tours.
From a Kendal base a private day works particularly well — collected at your accommodation, no drive to a departure point, and the route shaped around whether you want the lakes, the Dales or the great houses on the doorstep. Well-behaved dogs are welcome aboard by prior arrangement, travelling safely in the crates our vehicles carry.
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.
Getting here: Oxenholme on the main line, then a short taxi or the branch train. From the M6, junction 36 or 37.
Parking: considerably easier and cheaper than anywhere in the national park — one of the real advantages of this base.
Value: accommodation here generally costs less than the equivalent beside a lake, which for a longer stay adds up to a fair number of extra tour days.
Ages: our tours suit adults and older children, about seven and up.
Just outside it. Kendal sits a few miles south-east of the national park boundary — which is why it is cheaper, quieter and easier to reach than lakeside towns, and why a great many visitors base themselves here on purpose.
On private tours, yes: we collect you from your accommodation and bring you back, from £459 for the group. For a small-group seat, our nearest pickup is Oxenholme station, on the edge of town; each tour page lists the pickups that tour uses.
About twenty to twenty-five minutes by road, or a short train hop from Oxenholme to Windermere on the branch line.
The castle ruins above the town, Abbot Hall, the Brewery Arts Centre, the Kendal Museum and a really good independent high street — plus Levens Hall and Sizergh Castle a short drive south.
For a certain kind of trip, very much so — better value, easier parking, direct rail access, and both the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales within reach. The trade-off is that you are not waking up beside a lake.
Any of our tours, run privately: your own guide and vehicle, collected from your accommodation, on the date that suits you, with nobody aboard you did not bring. We don’t run every tour every day, so reserve your day when you book your stay. Already here? Call us on 015394 55507.
Arriving by train? We can collect your party at the station, go straight out on tour, and bring you to 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.
Book a private tourTailor-made for each booking: an anniversary, a proposal, the places and the people you most want to see.
Plan a bespoke tourSources: Levens Hall; National Trust — Sizergh; Lake District National Park Authority.
Lake District Tours is an independent local tour company based in Kendal. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the places it mentions.
This page was checked by Gillian in .
Levens Hall topiary: Kevin Waterhouse, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Photographs are of the area rather than the hotel itself. Tour photographs are credited on each tour page.
