Kendal · Milnthorpe Road
Things to do near Stonecross Manor —
a local guide
From the people who drive these roads every day
Kendal · Milnthorpe Road
From the people who drive these roads every day
Kendal
15 minon foot
Levens & Sizergh
Minutessouth
Nearest pickup
Oxenholmestation, minutes away
Private tour
£459per group, from the hotel
On site
Poolsauna and spa
Small groups
7guests at most
A private tour from Stonecross Manor
Book any of our tours as a private tour, collected from the hotel, 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
Stonecross Manor was built in 1857, and not as a hotel. It went up as an orphanage, housing children who had no other provision in Victorian Westmorland, and if you look at the scale of the original building with that in mind it reads rather differently. Today it is a comfortable hotel with a pool and a spa on the southern edge of Kendal — fifteen minutes' walk from the town, a few minutes from the motorway. This guide covers the town, the country south of it, and the history under your feet.
Victorian Westmorland was a wool and mill economy, and mill economies produced orphans — through accident, disease and the ordinary brutality of nineteenth-century working life. A building this size, put up specifically to house them in 1857, is a piece of social history standing in plain sight on the Milnthorpe Road. It is easy to walk past. Knowing what it was makes staying in it a good deal more interesting, and it is the kind of thing the guidebooks tend to leave out because it is not picturesque.
The walk into town follows the road down towards the River Kent and the centre — the yards off the main streets, Abbot Hall, the Quaker Tapestry, the Brewery Arts Centre doing food, film and theatre in one building. Kendal Castle stands on the hill above: twelfth-century, ruined, free and open, with the best view of the town from the top.
You are pointing the right way for two of the finest houses in the north. Levens Hall, minutes down the road, holds the oldest topiary garden in the world — laid out in the 1690s and clipped continuously ever since. Sizergh Castle is closer still: a medieval pele tower that grew into a family house over some seven hundred years of Strickland occupation, with limestone gardens and really good wildlife. We run tours to both.
West of the town the Lyth Valley runs down towards the estuary, and it is damson country — the orchards here produce a fruit the area has been known for since at least the eighteenth century. In late March and April the blossom turns the whole valley white, which is one of the really great sights of Cumbria and almost entirely unknown outside it. In autumn the pubs and farm gates sell the fruit, the jam and the gin.
Oxenholme is minutes away and is a pickup on some of our tours, which makes planning a week from here unusually simple. Private days collect at the hotel.
Any of these can run privately, collected from the hotel, for your party alone. Oxenholme station is the nearest small-group pickup.
From Kendal a private day is straightforward — collected at the hotel, no drive to a departure point, and the route shaped around the lakes, the Dales or the great houses south. Please note the hotel itself does not accept dogs, so this assumes a dog-free stay.
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.
Arriving: M6 junction 36, then a few minutes north. Oxenholme for the main line.
Damson blossom: late March into April, and worth timing a visit around if you have any choice.
Into town: a level-ish fifteen minutes; easy in both directions.
Ages: our tours suit adults and older children, about seven and up.
It was built in 1857 as an orphanage, housing children who had no other provision in Victorian Westmorland. It became a hotel much later, and the scale of the original building still tells you what it was built to do.
On Milnthorpe Road at the southern edge of town — about a fifteen-minute walk into the centre, and a few minutes from the A591 and the M6.
No — the hotel does not permit pets. If you are travelling with a dog, several places in our other area guides welcome them, and well-behaved dogs are welcome on our private tours by prior arrangement.
On private tours, yes: we collect you at the hotel and bring you back, from £459 for the group. For a small-group seat, our nearest pickup is Oxenholme station, a few minutes away, for some of our tours; each tour page lists the pickups that tour uses.
Any of our tours, run privately: your own guide and vehicle, collected from the hotel, 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 the hotel 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: Stonecross Manor Hotel; Levens Hall; National Trust — Sizergh.
Lake District Tours is an independent local tour company based in Kendal. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Stonecross Manor Hotel.
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.
