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.
Quick Facts
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 genuinely 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 genuinely 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 picks up our full-day tours, which makes planning a week from here unusually simple. 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 & bookFrom 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.
Oxenholme, a few minutes away, is a pickup on our full-day tours. Half-day tours run from Windermere station, Bowness Pier 1 and Ambleside library. Private tours can usually collect at the hotel.
We are an independent local tour operator, based in Kendal. This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Stonecross Manor Hotel.