Gilpin sits in the lanes at Crook, a few miles east of Windermere and comfortably away from the traffic that grinds along the A591 all summer. That is the whole proposition: gardens, woodland and quiet, within a quarter of an hour of everything. Guests come for the food and the calm rather than for a lake view, and the week works best if you plan it that way. This guide covers how.
Quick Facts
The gardens and woodland here are extensive and genuinely worth walking rather than glancing at, and after a long drive north they do more good than another hour in the car. It is also worth knowing what you have not booked: this is not a lakeside hotel, and the fells are a drive away. What you have instead is quiet — which in the Lake District in August is arguably the scarcer commodity.
Almost every hotel in this part of the Lakes sits on or just off the main Windermere–Ambleside road, which in season carries a great deal of slow traffic. Gilpin does not. The practical result is that you sleep in silence and start the day without queueing — and if someone else is driving you out for the day, you skip the worst of it entirely.
Windermere and Bowness are ten to fifteen minutes west for the station, the piers and the boats. Kendal is a similar distance south-east — a proper Cumbrian market town with a good museum, the Brewery arts centre and rather better everyday shopping than the lakeside villages. Levens Hall and Sizergh Castle are both a short drive south, and both are worth a half-day: Levens for the extraordinary seventeenth-century topiary garden, Sizergh for the house, the limestone garden and the wildlife. One practical note worth booking around: Levens Hall closes for the season each year in early October, while Sizergh's garden stays open through autumn and into winter — so for a stay later in the year, Sizergh is the safer half-day to plan for.
From Crook, everything worth seeing involves a drive — so it is worth letting somebody else do it. Our tours carry seven guests at most and leave from Windermere station, ten minutes away; private days collect at the hotel.
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 & bookThis is arguably the best season to have booked the quiet over the lake view. Step outside on an October morning and the air itself has changed — that first cold, mineral bite that smells faintly of woodsmoke and wet earth, the kind that makes you want to walk before breakfast rather than after it. The woodland and farmland around the grounds turn properly: beech and oak along the lanes going gold and copper, hedgerows heavy with hips and haws, and the low sun catching every leaf still holding on so the whole walk seems lit from within. With the A591 traffic thinned right down, the advantage of sitting off the main road is doubled — you get all that colour without a single coach party chasing it, just birdsong, the crunch of leaves underfoot, and your own breath in the air.
Kendal's market keeps its full autumn rhythm, stallholders wrapped up against the chill, the smell of hot food drifting between the stalls. If your stay falls in September, Levens Hall's extraordinary topiary is worth timing a visit around — it looks its most theatrical against low light and turning trees, and the garden closes for the season in early October, so it's genuinely a last-chance outing rather than a standing recommendation. For anything later in the autumn, Sizergh's limestone garden and woodland stay open and colour just as beautifully, without the deadline. And back at the Lake House, the tarn holds every colour of the woods around it in near-perfect reflection, stiller now the season's crowds have gone — the kind of view that makes you stop mid-sentence, and the reason to book this exact window rather than any other.
For a stay of this kind — quiet, food-led, unhurried — a private day is the natural companion. We collect at the hotel, there is no departure time to drive to, and the route is built around your party. Well-behaved dogs travel 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.
Car-free: harder here than in the towns — bus service through Crook is limited. Most guests drive in and then leave the car for tour days, or arrive by train to Windermere and taxi across.
Evenings: the hotel is a destination for dinner in its own right, which suits the location; if you want to eat elsewhere, plan a taxi.
Timing: book tour days when you book the room — seven seats, and summer dates go two to three weeks out.
Ages: our tours suit adults and older children, about seven and up.
In the quiet lanes at Crook, a few miles east of Windermere — far enough off the main road that most passing traffic never sees it.
Windermere station, about ten to twelve minutes by car — Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library are our other two. On private tours we can usually collect you at the hotel.
A separate house on its own grounds a short drive from the main hotel, run as a small private retreat with its own tarn. Guests there have use of the main hotel's facilities.
Into the surrounding lanes and farmland, yes — but this is quiet countryside rather than fell country. For the lake, the villages and the mountains you will want a car or a tour day.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Gilpin Hotel & Lake House.