Bassenthwaite Lake · Keswick 15 minutes
Things to do near Armathwaite Hall —
a local guide
From the people who drive these roads every day
Bassenthwaite Lake · Keswick 15 minutes
From the people who drive these roads every day
Keswick
15 minuteseight miles, door to market square
On the estate
Deer parkred and fallow deer
On the lake
OspreysApril to August
Private tour
£915ten lakes, from the front door
Private days
Full daysfrom £915 per group
Bespoke
from £942a full day, tailor-made
A private tour from Armathwaite Hall
A full day collected at the front door and kept for your party alone — starting with the private 10 Lakes Tour — or a bespoke day planned around your stay.
Reserve the private 10 Lakes Tour Plan a bespoke dayPrivate full days from £915 per group · bespoke full days from £942
You turn off at the Castle Inn and within three hundred yards the world goes quiet. Gates, then trees — four hundred acres of oak and beech closing over the drive, the light coming through in patches. By the time the trees part and the house appears, you've forgotten there's a world out there at all.
Open the window. Wood pigeons, leaves, water somewhere off to the left. A Victorian owner once had an entire public road moved so that nothing could interrupt this moment, and it still works: warm red stone, Skiddaw rising beyond in one long unbroken line, the lake lying flat and silver in front.
Over the next few days you'll keep stopping to look at that view. Everybody does. People have been fighting, scheming and building over it for seven centuries — we've written the whole story, and it's worth ten minutes of your first evening with something good in your glass.
Set an alarm once, just once, and go out before breakfast. It'll be colder than you thought and the wet grass will get into your shoes, and none of it will matter, because there will be deer at the edge of the wood — red and fallow, quite still, deciding about you. In October the stags roar across the parkland at first light, and you can hear them from the terrace with a cup of tea in your hand.
Then, between April and August, look to the water. Somewhere over the lake an osprey is hanging in the air, deciding when to drop. They came back to Bassenthwaite in 2001 after a hundred and fifty years away from England, and they've raised chicks here every summer since — from the viewpoints in the forest across the water you can watch the nest itself through the big scopes. And if you've children with you, the wildlife park sits right on the estate: you can walk there from your room, see the lemurs, and be back for lunch.
Keswick is eight miles away — fifteen minutes, door to market square. Market days still fill it the way they have for centuries; Derwentwater is at the bottom of the town with launches criss-crossing it all day; and in the fields just above stands a ring of stones older than anything written down, with the fells shouldering up on every side. Go early. There's a version of that stone circle with nobody else in it, and it belongs to people staying this close.
It creeps up on you, usually on the second morning. The first day the view is enough. By the second you're looking past it — wondering what's behind the mountain, where that road goes, whose houses those are across the water. A view this good makes you want the rest.
So: a coat, and be at the front of the house for half past nine. We come to the door, and that's the last thing you have to organise until dinner. By ten you're standing inside the stone circle before the crowds. Somewhere between the stones and lunch you'll hear about the feud, and the will, and who paid for the room you had dinner in last night — and you'll catch yourself retelling it over pudding.
The roads from the hall are the northern Lakes at their best and least forgiving: Whinlatter and Honister, the Newlands valley, the quiet lanes at the back of Skiddaw to Uldale and Caldbeck, most of them narrow, steep in places and open to the weather. Our private days are built for exactly this country — taken in comfort over a full day. Your guide drives; the fells are yours at your own pace. You're back through the gates by late afternoon with the light still on the water, and you haven't looked at a map, found a parking space or made a single decision since breakfast.
From Armathwaite Hall we collect for full-day private tours and full-day bespoke tours, at the front door. The day that shows you the most is the private 10 Lakes Tour from Armathwaite Hall: ten lakes, the high passes and a cruise on the water, £915 for your party of up to seven. Well-behaved dogs are welcome by arrangement.
These are bespoke days, designed for your booking alone, from £942 for a full day for your party of up to seven, with a £95 planning fee redeemed against your tour. One price for everyone, agreed before you travel. See bespoke tours for how it works.
The prices shown are per person for our small-group departures from Ambleside library, about forty-five minutes south along the A591 through Grasmere and Rydal, if you have a car. From the hall, any of them can run privately as a full day, collected at the front door; the shorter morning and afternoon tours pair into one full day, so tell us which two you would like when you enquire.
Come between late September and November and the estate puts on its finest performance of the year. October is rutting season, and it's a different spectacle altogether from the quiet grazing of summer. Stand at the tree line at dawn, breath clouding, and you'll hear the stags before you see them — a deep, guttural roar carrying clean across the parkland in the still air. Then the sight of them: heads low, antlers locked, hooves tearing up the wet grass. Ancient theatre, right outside the hall — and you watch it in your coat over pyjamas, then go in to breakfast.
The ospreys will have left for Africa by then, but look what replaces them: Skiddaw sometimes catching the season's first dusting of snow while the parkland below is still deep in burnished colour — white summit, gold woodland, one view. Down the road, Keswick and Derwentwater are at their best, the launches quieter, mist lifting slowly off the water at first light, the fells glowing amber and rust. And waiting for you back at the hall: log fires, and the particular smell of woodsmoke, which no spa treatment has yet improved on.
It's also the finest time of year to take a day out — Borrowdale in full colour is arguably the best week the Lake District has — and even the Fletcher-Vanes' other house turns gold: Hutton in the Forest through the seasons. For what's turning and when, see our autumn pages and Derwentwater in autumn.
Eight miles — about fifteen minutes by car, door to market square, with Derwentwater and the stone circle just beyond the town.
Yes, for full days — private tours and bespoke days. We collect at the front door, usually between half past eight and half past nine, to suit you, and have you back by late afternoon. Private full days are from £915 for the group, for up to seven guests; the private 10 Lakes Tour from the hall is £915.
Yes — any scheduled itinerary can run as a private day from the hall, collected at the door: the same route, your party alone. From Bassenthwaite these run as full days, so the shorter morning and afternoon itineraries pair into one.
Yes, if you have a car. Our scheduled tours pick up outside Ambleside library, about forty-five minutes south along the A591 — a beautiful drive through Grasmere and Rydal — and the day finishes in good time for the spa before dinner.
On private and bespoke days, yes — well-behaved dogs are welcome by prior arrangement, travelling in a crate we carry. Let us know when you book and we'll plan stops to suit.
April to August. The viewing points, with volunteers and telescopes, are at Dodd Wood on the far side of the lake, about ten minutes from the hall.
Booking the hall? Book the day out at the same time — tell us the date and we'll hold it. Private days from the front door are arranged in advance, with the price agreed before you travel. Already at the hall? Call us on 015394 55507.
Reserve the private 10 Lakes TourA bespoke full day, shaped around whatever you love — from £942 for the group.
Plan a bespoke daySources: Historic England (the hall's listing); Armathwaite Hall Hotel & Spa; the Lake District Osprey Project at Dodd Wood; Keswick Tourism Association.
Lake District Tours is an independent local tour company based in Kendal. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Armathwaite Hall.
This page was checked by Gillian in .
Photographs: HeritageDaily (CC BY-SA 4.0), Mick Knapton (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Richard Sutcliffe (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Tour photographs are credited on each tour page.
