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Dalemain Private Tour
A few miles away on the Ullswater side — a historic house continuously in one family, with gardens that reward a slow morning.
See dates & bookAskham sits on the quiet side of the fells, in the Lowther valley between Ullswater and Penrith, and the first thing to understand about staying here is that you are not really in the Lake District of the postcards. You are in the Eden Valley, which is older, emptier and in some ways more interesting — and it takes about an hour to get to Windermere, which changes what a day out should look like.
Quick Facts
Askham Hall is built around a fourteenth-century pele tower — a fortified stone house of the kind that went up all along this border when cattle raiding was a normal hazard of living here rather than a story in a guidebook. The Lowther family have held it since 1724, and it still reads as a house that people live in rather than a hotel that people check into.
The gardens are terraced down towards the beck, there is a walled kitchen garden supplying the kitchen, and the whole thing sits within the wider Lowther estate. If you like buildings that explain their own landscape, this is a very good one.
A couple of miles away, Lowther Castle is one of the strangest and best things in Cumbria: a vast early nineteenth-century pile that was stripped and abandoned in the 1950s and is now a stabilised shell with extraordinary gardens growing through and around it. It is a ruin that has been curated rather than restored, and the effect is quite unlike a National Trust house.
Give it half a day. The gardens alone take longer than people expect.
Pooley Bridge is about a quarter of an hour away, which puts the whole of Ullswater within easy reach — the Steamers, the Howtown shore, and the Ullswater Way if you want to walk part of it. This is the lake we would send you to if you only had one, and it is on your doorstep rather than over a pass.
Allium, at the hall itself, holds one Michelin Star, with cooking built largely on the estate's own produce. We have a full day-planning guide for dining there, including the honest version of the drive if you are coming from the central Lakes.
The Dog and Gun Inn at Skelton, north-west of Penrith, is the other starred kitchen on this side of the fells — about half an hour away, and a village pub rather than a country house.
Worth knowing before you choose: any of these tours can also run privately, door to door from where you're staying — the same route, your party alone, collected at the door and shaped around you. Just say so when you enquire.
A few miles away on the Ullswater side — a historic house continuously in one family, with gardens that reward a slow morning.
See dates & bookThe other great house of this corner, north of Penrith, with the Eden Valley all around it.
See dates & bookThe grand sweep of the National Park, including an Ullswater Steamers cruise — a full day, departing from Windermere, Bowness or Ambleside.
See dates & bookAskham is outside our seven core towns for door-to-door collection, so a private day from the hall is arranged as a full-day private booking. If you would rather join a scheduled small-group departure, Windermere station, Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library are the pickup points — about an hour away, which makes a full day out a genuinely long day.
Our honest advice for a stay on this side: spend most of it on this side. The Eden Valley, Ullswater and the Lowther estate will fill three or four days without you crossing a pass once.
Without a car: difficult. Penrith has the station and there are buses to Pooley Bridge, but this is a corner of the county where a car or a private day makes a real difference.
Kirkstone Pass: beautiful and slow, and genuinely unpleasant in bad weather. The A6 route to the central Lakes is duller and more reliable.
Dogs: welcome on our private and bespoke tours by prior arrangement, travelling in the crates our vehicles carry. Not on scheduled departures.
In the village of Askham in the Lowther valley, between Ullswater and Penrith — about fifteen minutes from Pooley Bridge and around an hour from Windermere.
Yes — Allium at Askham Hall holds one Michelin Star. We have a separate day-planning guide for dining there.
Askham is outside our seven core towns for door-to-door collection, so a private day from the hall is arranged as a full-day private booking. Scheduled departures leave from Windermere station, Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library.
Lowther Castle and its gardens are a couple of miles away, Ullswater is about fifteen minutes, and Dalemain and Hutton-in-the-Forest are both within easy reach.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Askham Hall.