Here at Sykehouse Cottage we have some favourite holiday activities. These include:
- A trip on th
e Eskdale and Ravenglass Railway. Also known as “La’al Ratty”, this is one of the oldest narrow gauge railways in the country. They start running daily from mid March, through some beautiful countryside. Click here for their website. It’s about an half an hour from Sykehouse Cottage either across Corney Fell or taking the A 595. - This can be combined with a ramble around Muncaster Castle and Gardens where for this Half Term,
they are holding their Muncaster Festival (28-30 May) with lots of family activities including circus skills and a climbing wall – complete with the International Jesters’ Tournament on the final day. Click here for more details. - Closer to home, we can walk across the fields from Sykehouse Cottage for a gorgeous pub lunch at the Blacksmiths Arms, Broughton Mills. Click here for details of opening hours on their website.
The rooms are carefully furnished with the blend of Arts and Crafts and early country-made furniture advocated by Baillie Scott, containing many pieces by the leading Arts & Crafts designers and studios – furniture by Morris & Co and Voysey, metalwork by W A S Benson and ceramics by Ruskin Pottery and William de Morgan.
Rydal Mount is a privately run house with beautifully landscaped gardens shaped by Wordsworth. Their website can be reached 
be found 
Gondola (are they floating?); Fell Foot at Newby Bridge; Claife Viewing Station on the west bank on Windermere; and Wray Castle at Ambleside. Click 
firm will be displayed around Keswick, Grasmere, Rydal, Ambleside and Windermere. The animals will be placed in public places and follow the route of the 555 bus service.
draw /paint designs of herdwicks onto the main herdwick model. The designs will be applied in such a way that they will look like the sheep model is marked with traditional ‘smit’!” To have a look at more of Jo’s work, click on this link for her 
From this half term, the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry will be running an exhibition of old photographs and artefacts to shed light on a fascinating and unique part of Kendal’s history, the town’s “Yards”. The museum’s display will attempt to answer such questions as: What was life like the Yards? Who lived and worked there? How did they get their names?
Abbot Hall, Blackwell House and the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere are all favourite trips out for us when we are staying at Sykehouse Cottage. I sometimes think people forget about these fine museums in their haste to get up a mountain …
Then from 11 March, both Abbott Hall and Blackwell will be showing “Laura Ford: Sculpture and Drawings”. Located at Blackwell on the lawns, with select pieces in the main house and at Abbot Hall, this exhibition will comprise Ford’s earlier work together with new sculptures. Laura Ford describes her work as sculptures dressed as people who are dressed as animals, as they meld together ideas of childhood memory with a disturbing edge.
The Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere has its “Shepherds to Charabancs” exhibition running until 28 February. Subtitled “Changing Life in Grasmere 1800 to 1900” the show has been inspired by a recent addition to the museum an 1859 survey map of Grasmere. Curated by The Grasmere History Society the exhibition explains the transformation of Grasmere through local stories and brought alive with objects belonging to local residents as well as maps, artefacts and images from the Wordsworth Trust’s collection.
The origin of this style of wrestling is a matter of debate, with some describing it as having evolved from Norse wrestling; others associate it with a Celtic tradition. It’s great fun to watch and as they start, gripping each other around the backs, it is easy to see why it reminded Nicholson of the Lake District walls which are some of the most distinctive and most loved features of the fells.
Sykehouse Cottage 