Sharrow Bay is currently closed and undergoing a full restoration. We are including it here because it matters, because guests still ask about it, and because it is coming back: planning permission for the restoration was granted in December 2025, and the work is under way. This page is the story of why it is worth waiting for — and what to do on Ullswater in the meantime.
Quick Facts
It is not an exaggeration to say Sharrow Bay created the English country house hotel. Francis Coulson opened it in 1948, joined soon after by Brian Sack, and between them they did something nobody had quite done: they ran a hotel as though it were a private house. No reception desk. Books everywhere, pictures, objects, flowers. Cooking of a standard nobody expected outside London, and a welcome that treated guests as guests rather than as trade. Everything that is now standard practice in a good British country house hotel was, in some measure, worked out here first.
It became the first Relais & Châteaux member in the United Kingdom, and it ran under Coulson and Sack for fifty years. It is also — and this is the fact everyone repeats, for good reason — generally credited with the invention of sticky toffee pudding.
The later story is less happy. The hotel was sold in 2003, the owning group later collapsed, the Michelin star went in 2012, and the doors closed for good at the start of the 2020 pandemic. In September that year it went into administration owing a considerable sum, and for several years it sat empty on one of the finest sites in England.
In January 2024 it was acquired by CIEL Hotels — the Lowther family's group, whose Askham Hall nearby holds a Michelin star for its restaurant Allium. They brought in Feilden Fowles, the architects behind the award-winning Fratry building at Carlisle Cathedral, and in December 2025 the Lake District National Park Authority granted permission for the scheme: restoration of the main house, the garden rooms wing and the lodge, a new spa and wellness building, woodland cabins in the grounds, and the reinstatement of the formal gardens. The intention is that Allium moves here from Askham Hall.
The eastern shore of Ullswater is the quiet side — no through road of consequence, wooded slopes running down to the water, and a long view across to the fells. Sharrow Bay's seventeen acres sit right on it. Whatever the hotel becomes, the setting is the thing that made the reputation in the first place, and it has not changed at all.
There is a good deal open and worth booking on this lake right now. Another Place, The Lake at Watermillock is the contemporary, outdoorsy option with a lakeside jetty. Leeming House sits in twenty acres nearby and is the closest of our guides to Aira Force. The Inn on the Lake and The Ullswater Inn are at the wilder Glenridding end, and Pooley Bridge has a cluster of good inns at the northern tip.
Our scheduled small-group tours depart Windermere station, Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library — all a fair drive south over Kirkstone or round by the A66. From anywhere on Ullswater, a private day collected at your door is the practical arrangement.
Whatever stage the restoration has reached, the setting itself is doing exactly what it always does this time of year. The wooded slopes above the seventeen acres turn through deep gold and copper, mist sometimes lying along the water at first light before the sun burns it off, and the lake grows stiller and quieter now the through-season traffic has eased — just the occasional call of a bird crossing the water and the soft sound of leaves falling into it. The long view across to the fells sharpens in the clearer autumn light, every ridge and gully suddenly distinct against a low, golden sun.
It is worth keeping in mind for whenever the hotel does reopen — this is arguably the season the site was built to be seen in, the light doing exactly what those first owners must have hoped it would. In the meantime, the hotels nearby along this shore share the same autumn light and the same hush, and are very much open to experience it now.
From Ullswater a private day is genuinely how it works rather than an upsell — the scheduled pickups are a fair drive away, so we collect at your accommodation and shape the route around your party. 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.
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 & bookNot at the time of writing. It closed in 2020 and is undergoing a full restoration under new ownership, with planning permission granted in December 2025. No reopening date has been confirmed — check directly with the hotel.
CIEL Hotels, the Lowther family's group, which also runs Askham Hall and its Michelin-starred restaurant Allium, the Queen's Head at Askham and the George and Dragon at Clifton.
Two things. It is widely regarded as the original English country house hotel, opened in 1948 by Francis Coulson and later Brian Sack, and it was the first Relais & Châteaux member in the UK. It is also generally credited with the invention of sticky toffee pudding.
Certainly — and several excellent places to stay on this lake are open now. See our Ullswater guides, and we can collect from any of them on a private day.
We are an independent local tour operator. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sharrow Bay or CIEL Hotels. Restoration timelines change — please check directly with the hotel before making plans around it.