Sykehouse Cottage

A beautiful C17th Holiday Cottage in the Lake District

Author Archives: vanessarigg


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Where history and nature meet

cumbria natureHow marvellous!  Here at Sykehouse Cottage we just love the cabinet of curiosities that is Kendal Museum.  The place houses the Kendal and Westmorland Galleries, the World Wildlife Exhibition, The Lake District Natural History Gallery and The Hamer Mineral Collection.

The late John Hamer was a potholer and mineral collector. He collected one of the most superb and extensive mineral collections in the North of England.  This collection exceeds 2000 pieces and includes specimens from disused mines in the Lake District, where mineral collecting is now banned, and other regions of northern England. This invaluable collection is available for research and enjoyment by both geologists and those who are just fascinated by beautiful minerals.

geology cumbriaA spectacular display from the collection together with a complete catalogue, original note books, display charts and a map locating mine sites are featured as a new permanent display at Kendal Museum.

If you would like to know about opening times and current exhibitions, click on a click to their website HERE.


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5 Half Term Favourites

When we come up for a holiday at Sykehouse Cottage, there are certain things we love to do.  Here are five of our favourites.

self catering cottage1)  Walk across the fields for a gorgeous pub lunch at the Blacksmiths Arms, Broughton Mills.  Click here for details of opening hours on their website.

 

self catering lake district2) Ride on the La’al Ratty : the Ravenglass and Eskdale Steam Railway.  Click here for their details.

 

self catering cottage cumbria

3) Run around Muncaster Castle for the “Luck” and a pose in the stocks.  Click here for their website.

cottage rental lakes

4) Imagine, for a moment, living at Blackwell, one of the country’s finest Arts and Crafts houses.  The stained glass!  The views!  Visit the website here.

 

market st ulverston5) Have a mooch around the lovely clothes, craft and book shops in Market Street, Ulverston.

 

 


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A little Goldsworthy.

Andy Goldsworthy

Slits Cut into Frozen Snow, Stormy … Blencathra, Cumbria, 12 February.

I notice that Abbot Hall Art Gallery’s talk next Monday 2 February, 2pm,  is on their series of Andy Goldsworthy photographs.  Goldsworthy’s pastoral style of land art has fallen rather out of fashion lately though I still hold his Sheepfolds and Grizedale Forest’s Taking a Wall  for a Walk in great affection: they sit quietly, playfully, in the Cumbrian landscape, making me appreciate the art of stone walling.  On our picnic walks from Sykehouse Cottage, we still enjoy making a little “Goldsworthy” every now and again.  Usually “fallen stars” of sticks, sometimes flags of leaves and twigs, occasionally balanced stones on river beaches.  Little Goldsworthys appeal to the scavenger, the creative and the mark maker in us all.

lake district art

Taking a Wall for a Walk – Grizedale Forest

The Gallery holds talks about works in their collection every Monday exc Bank Holidays which are included in the admission price.  Abbot Hall is well worth a visit if you are in the Kendal area.  For further details of their events and opening times, please click on this link to take you to their website.


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A change of air and exercise

celia fiennesIn c17th, when travel for its own sake was unheard of, Celia Fiennes roamed around England on horseback “to regain my health by variety and change of aire and exercise.”  Sometimes she travelled with relatives but she made her “Great Journey to Newcastle and Cornwall” of 1698 accompanied only by one or two servants.

Fiennes took notes to entertain her family and never intended to publish. So it is lovely that we can now all read her frank, vivid and unvarnished opinions in “Through England on a Side Saddle” as her writings provide an entirely unmannered portrait of the Lake District – unlike later Romantic writers.

char fishingShe talks of “Charr ffish … they pott with sweete spices”, oat Clapbread (easier to digest than the more common rye bread) and the “great Lake Wiandermer” into which trickling springs give “a pleasing sound and murmuring noise.”

A full transcript of her journey can be read at the delightful Vision of Britain website created by the University of Portsmouth’s Geography Department.


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Windermere Jetty

windermereIf you read many of our posts, you will realise we are fascinated by all things industrial in the history of the Lake District and so we are thrilled about The Lakeland Arts’ new development, Windermere Jetty.  This is the new name for the Windermere Steamboat Museum and will house a unique collection of historic vessels with a working and possibly viewable (yes, please) conservation workshop.  Scanning through the publicity, it looks as though “the Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories” will be a fun and inspiring experience and a great addition to a visitors’ itinerary.

windermereThe opening of Windermere Jetty is scheduled for completion in 2016 and, in the meantime, Lakeland Arts are “Just Visiting” at Brockhole, the Lake District Visitor Centre, where you can find more information this exciting project.  Click this link through to the Lakeland Arts main website.  And this link will take you to their informative WordPress blog.


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Half Term Walk from Hodge Close

hodge closeWe parked at the dramatic Hodge Close Slate Quarry near Coniston. A good spot to park the car as long as you don’t mind the terrifyingly deep  – and unfenced – excavations.  One peek over the edge is enough for me though it is a favourite of abseilers and divers.  After a hour and an half ramble over good tracks and through lovely woods and past Cathedral Cavern, we reached our destination: The Three Shires Inn.  This is a lovely traditional slate inn built in 1872 and it gets its name from a point on Wrynose Pass, close by , where the boundaries of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire used to meet.  Chips and Cumberland sausage were ordered and halves of Loweswater Gold, Cumberland Ale and Hawkshead Red consumed. Marvellous. We took a shorter return route across Stang End Farm  as the clouds had gathered: just 30 mins to the car.  This walk is about 20 minutes drive (12 miles) from Sykehouse Cottage. woods


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C17th recipes at Townend

Townend dinner

Townend at Troutbeck is one of our very favourite National Trust properties because wandering around this lovely farmhouse, you can get a real sense of what everyday life would have been like in the collection of C17th houses in the hamlet of Syke in Broughton.   This year they are bringing to life a collection of recipes written by Elizabeth Birkett in 1699 and on Thursday afternoons throughout October, you can watch and help them to recreate some of these recipes from meaty mince pies and macaroons to medicines dating back to the 17th century.  For further information, please follow the link here.


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Swimming in Coniston Water

With the long stretch of fine weather this Summer, the tribe judged it perfect conditions for a dip in Coniston Water – without wetsuits.  Hurrah!  So we soughconiston mapt out our favourite beach on the east side of the Water and loaded up the car with picnic boxes, blankets and dogs.  It was a fabulous afternoon and the water was warm enough for the most hesitant of our party.  Some of us swam out far enough to greet passing canoeists whilst others were content to paddle at the shore line.  Wild swimming is so much more fun than a chlorinated swimming pool with little fish nibbling at your toes and fronds of weed stroking your legs.  If sea water swimming is all citrus sparkle and salt dust on skin, fresh water swimming is as soft and silky as strawberries and cream …

Coniston Water


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Hepworth at Abbot Hall

We are hepworth abbot hallvery excited at Sykehouse Cottage as Abbot Hall comes up trumps again and brings a stunning collection of Barbara Hepworth sculpture to Kendal for their Summer Exhibition from 5 July to 28 September.  Apart from Barbara Hepworth: A Retrospective at Tate Liverpool in 1994, this is the first significant exhibition of her work in the North West for over sixty years. It will contain some of Hepworth’s most iconic sculptures including Stringed Figure (Curlew), 1956, Torso III (Galatea), 1958, and Moon Form, 1968, alongside prints, photographs and ephemera detailing the artist’s life long relationship with the landscape. Lakeland Arts are working closely with the Hepworth Estate to secure key works as well as borrowing from national institutions for this important exhibition.

The landscape provided unending inspiration for Hepworth’s art.  And perhaps you will be inspired by the beautiful Lakeland landscape when you next visit?

Kendal is 30 miles (about 45mins drive)  from Sykehouse Cottage and is well worth a day trip for Abbot Hall, Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry, of course,  and numerous shops and coffee houses …

If you would like to know more about Abbot Hall Art Gallery click here.


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Duddon, Bleansey, Lickle.

duddon lickle walk Walk : Duddon, Bleansey, Lickle.

This short stroll down to the river and back up again is now called Uncle David’s Walk as we rambled around it after his funeral one fine September.

Turn right out of Sykehouse cottage and up the hill to the High Cross Inn.  Cross the busy A595 to the pavement beyond and walk down to find the signpost and gateway off to the left.  Leaving the traffic madness behiIMG_9018nd, stroll along the footpath across the River Lickle and fields down to the Duddon at a spot called The Sheep Dip.  Good bathing in the Summer.  At the river bank turn right and stroll along past the wild garlic and trees to the bridge.  Stopping for the obligatory skimming stones contest.

Then cross the road by the traffic lights at the bridge and climb up the Ulpha Road, pass the first set of houses at Bank End.  Look out for a rough track and signpost on the right leading up through some woods and out down the bottom of gorse covered Bleansley Bank.

IMG_9039At Lower Bleansley, a collection of farmhouses, turn right through the barns, down across the marshy pasturelands by the Lickle again, heading for Manor Farm.  Follow the farm road up to the Coniston Road.  Cross over to the White Gates of West Park, known by locals as the Show Field.  Stop and admire the newly dredged pond, before making you way back across the field and into Broughton Square by the Coniston Road.

Takes about 2 hrs.  One short steep climb through the woods at Bleansley Bank.