Sykehouse Cottage

A beautiful C17th Holiday Cottage in the Lake District

Monthly Archives: May 2015


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South Lakes Zoo

Guests with children at Sykehouse Cottage regularly say how much they enjoyed the Zoo at Dalton which is a 10 mile / 20 minute drive away.

The Zoo describes itself as a “Safari Zoo” because you can “safari” around some enclosures on foot.  They have a good range of big animals including rhinos, lions, tigers, bears, hippos, wolves, snow leopards, jaguar, giant otters, primates, vultures, and penguins.  There is an opportunity to hand feed giraffes, penguins and lemurs  and there’s also an adventure playground and new coffee shop for 2015.

The Zoo is open all year apart from Christmas Day and children are free with the paying adult.

We were particularly pleased to learn that in March their second West African Giraffe was born.  These beautiful animals with their distinctive light coloured spots are very rare animals; only 61 of these  giraffes were living in the wild in Niger 10 years ago.

For more details, just follow this link to their website.giraffe


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Evelyn De Morgan at Blackwell

south lakesIf you are in the South Lakes this Summer, why not pop into Blackwell to see their exhibition : Evelyn De Morgan: Artist of Peace which is running until 13 September?  Evelyn was the wife of the (nowadays) more well known Arts and Crafts ceramicist, William de Morgan.  In their day, William (1839-1917) and Evelyn (1855-1919) De Morgan were both highly respected artists in their own right.  In addition to art, they became involved in many of the leading issues of their time including prison reform, women’s suffrage, pacifism and spiritualism.

The show focuses on the pacifism of Evelyn and her reaction both the First World War and the Boer War; many of the works were shown in her 1916 exhibition held in aid of the Red Cross.

De Morgan’s paintings bear the influence of early Renaissance art as well as that of her Pre-Raphaelite contemporaries, yet her style is distinctive in its rich use of colour, allegory and the dominance of the female form. Following from her interest in Spiritualism, her paintings frequently display an interest in the confinement and limitations of the physical body on earth. Often this is resolved through death.

All the work is on loan from the De Morgan Foundation whose interesting website can be found here.