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Sizergh Castle is not, technically, in the Lake District National Park. It sits on the edge of the Lyth Valley, four miles south of Kendal, in the limestone country between the southern Lakes and the Kent estuary. But it is the most historically significant medieval domestic building in the wider Lake District area, and it has been continuously occupied by the same family — the Stricklands and their Hornyold-Strickland descendants — for over 750 years.
This kind of continuity is rare anywhere in England. At Sizergh, it is combined with a building of exceptional quality and a history that intersects with some of the most significant events of the last seven centuries.
The oldest part of Sizergh is the peel tower — a fortified tower built around 1340, when the Scottish border threat made such defences necessary in northern England. Peel towers are scattered across Cumbria; what makes Sizergh unusual is that the tower became the nucleus of a substantial medieval hall house, extended through the 15th and 16th centuries into the complex of buildings that visitors see today.
The great hall, added in the 15th century, is one of the finest medieval halls in the north of England. The Elizabethan inlaid woodwork in the upper rooms is particularly exceptional — the carved panelling from Sizergh, some of which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is among the finest surviving examples of Elizabethan woodwork in Britain.
The Strickland family held Sizergh from the 14th century. Their history intersects with English national history at several significant points — a Strickland was at Agincourt; the family were prominent Catholics who remained loyal to the Stuarts through the upheavals of the 17th century; Walter Strickland fought for Charles I and his son spent years in exile with the court of James II; the family lost Sizergh's Westmorland estates briefly after the 1715 Jacobite rising.
The Jacobite connection is one of the more interesting threads in Sizergh's history. The family's loyalty to the Stuart cause through two generations of political danger and exile — when the easier and safer course was accommodation with the Protestant settlement — is a story that the house contains quietly but consistently. Several portraits of Stuart monarchs hang in the rooms, and a relic from the life of Mary Queen of Scots is among the collection.
The National Trust, which has managed the castle since 1950, has maintained and developed the garden into one of the finest in the north of England. The water garden — created in the early 20th century from the naturally wet ground at the base of the castle — is particularly notable for its collection of hardy ferns, which is one of the most comprehensive in Britain. The rock garden above the water garden is exceptional in late spring.
The garden at Sizergh is at its best in May and June (the fern collection, the rock garden) and in October (the autumn colour in the lake section). It is a garden that rewards multiple visits at different seasons.
Sizergh is three and a half miles south of Kendal on the A590. It is accessible by bus from Kendal and is about twenty minutes by car from Windermere. The National Trust car park is generous; the castle and garden are open most days from March to November.
For guests arriving at Oxenholme station, Sizergh is approximately five miles away and easily combined with a Lake District visit.
Sizergh fits naturally into a bespoke medieval history day — combined with the Roman fort at Galava in Ambleside, the medieval features of Kendal Castle above the town, and the landscape of the Lyth Valley. Your expert storyteller can connect the threads of the region's history across two thousand years in a single day.
Sizergh Castle can be included in a bespoke history and heritage tour.