Sykehouse Cottage

A beautiful C17th Holiday Cottage in the Lake District

Category Archives: Children


by

May Half Term Ideas 2017

Here at Sykehouse Cottage we have some favourite holiday activities.  These include:

  • A trip on thratty2e 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, muncaster2they 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.self catering cottage


by

Easter Holiday Ideas

Here at Sykehouse Cottage we have some favourite Easter activities.  These include:

  • A trip on thratty2e 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 Easter Weekend, muncaster2they are running a Teddies Go Free promotion – free entry for every child with a teddy and there’s the
    Muncaster Giant Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday and Monday.  Click here for more details.
  • And of course if anyone needs anymore chocolate, you could always find a Cadbury Easter Egg Hunt at various NT venues including: the Coniston Steam 1152337Gondola (are they floating?); Fell Foot at Newby Bridge; Claife Viewing Station on the west bank on Windermere; and Wray Castle at Ambleside.  Click here for more details and opening times.


by

Go Herdwick

A lovely new arts trail raising money for a local charity will go on display from 25 March this year.  60 models of Herdwick ewes, each decorated by a local artist and sponsored by a local ewefirm 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.

In September the flock will be rounded up for a gala auction in October.

We are particularly pleased to see that a favourite local artist of ours, Jo McGrath, has one to paint.  She plans “… to use the sheep raddle powder we use on our Herdwicks at Yew Tree farm, to mix up an acrylic paint to use to sheep-hatdraw /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 website. I posted another blog about her here.

Money raised will help fund redevelopment of Old Windebrowe, the Calvert Trust’s grade 2 listed farmhouse and tithe barn, which is thought to date back to the 1550s and was once used as a home by William Wordsworth.  The Trust provides adventure holidays for people with disabilities and plans to use the centre to provide specialist accommodation.  If you would like to know more about the Trust and its campaign, click here.

 

 

 


by

Show Time!

Held at West Park, known locally as the “Show Ground”, Millom & Broughton Show is on the last Saturday in August every year.  The field is easy to find: the first on the right running along the Coniston road and is a short walk from the holiday cottage.  If you are lucky enough to be in the area, it’s a lovely way to spend a day.

The Show Millom&broughton showis relatively small – contained in the one field – but has lots to look at and enjoy.  There are usually dog agility displays, fell racing, Cumberland wrestling and hound trailing, as well as all the livestock entrants, poultry tent and the fiercely competitive vegetable and flower competitions.

The tribe has variously entered edible necklaces, animals made out of vegetables, best handwriting of a poem and decorated wellies.  More senior members of the tribe enter marmalade, bread and photographs.

Other local shows in August 2015 are:


by

Windermere Weekender

Windermere Weekender

boats_with_legs08A Celebration of Boats, Steam and Stories from Windermere Jetty at Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House: Saturday 29 & Sunday 30 August, 10.30am – 5pm

Our very favourite Arts and Crafts house is planning a marvellous weekend of interactive arts and crafts for the last weekend of August.  In the grounds, there will be innovative sculptures, live music, craft activities, and a large scale creative weaving project and much more.

A great fun Lancaster-based theatre company called Inner State who seem to specialise in “Boats with Legs” will be performing and Dan Fox’s Sound Intervention will be creating some marvellous sounds.

Admission includes entrance to the house, exhibition and all activities.  Adult £8.50 (without donation £7.70), Children FREE.  More details about the event, click here.


by

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


by

Muncaster Castle – a family run experience …

Muncaster CastleAfter enduring many “experiences” of an expensive and very themed nature in days out with the Rigg tribe, a trip to Muncaster Castle is always a delight. There are no expensive photo opportunities to catch the unwary, nor an exit-through-big-gift-shop policy.  The castle has a charmingly individualistic audio tour written and read by the family which makes a refreshing change from an actor reading from carefully nuanced script.

They highlight family favourites: “I always point out the ships’ anchors and the date 1588 on the fireback!” barks the owner.  “Never forget the Armada lost some ships on this coast!”

Family losers:“This portrait is of the one we call the Drip.” “Here’s a family portrait and can you see how two of the sons’ heads are pasted in? They must have been the ones he wasn’t talking to.”

And apologies for not opening more rooms on account of the mess: “Sorry, you’re not allowed into my dressing room. We all need a door to throw our pyjamas behind!”.

I only paraphrase slightly.

Muncaster Castle is an truly original day out and 12 only miles from Sykehouse Cottage.  It would be a shame to miss it if you are in the area.


by

Silecroft Beach in the High Winds

In the high winds of October this year, team Rigg all drove down to the beach at Silecroft.  This long stretch of pebbly beach is a favourite of ours: an excellent spot for a “blow” with the children.  There are never many people here just a couple of stalwart fisherman with high rods planted in the stones and their long lines stretched into the waves.

This trip was particularly exciting as we fought against the blustery winds and stepped through the foam which was flying across the beach from the sea.

Only 8 miles away from Sykehouse Cottage, it has a car park and stone steps leading down to the shore.  No café but there’s sometimes an ice cream van parked up in the Summer.IMG_8282


by

Stott Park Bobbin Mill

Stott_Park_Bobbin_Mill_Steam_EngineThis is a fascinating mill run by English Heritage.  They fire up the Victorian Steam Engine the first weekend of every month and bank holidays from April through September (they are open from April til the end of the October half term) and there are family friendly guided tours around the mill.

It’s small, personable and even I can understand what most of the moving parts are doing!  You can really get a sense of what it must have been like for the 250 men and boys who churned out a 1/4 million bobbins a week – wading through waist deep discarded shavings to keep warm in the winter.  And it’s a great way to inspire budding engineers – or potential industrial historians!

Stott Park Bobbin Mill is about a 1/2 hour drive from the holiday cottage, just north of Newby Bridge.  For more details click here for the English Heritage website.


by

Muncaster Castle

Muncaster CastleMuncaster Castle is a great day out for families and a favourite of ours; it’s about 30 minutes drive from the holiday cottage.  There’s a very well presented Owl Centre which is the HQ of the World Owl Trust and also is a breeding centre for rare species. The Centre has daily displays of the birds which enthrals the smaller members of our tribe.

When we get bored of staring at the owls, the vast grounds are lovely for the children to run through, a good sized playground, café, and there’s the deliciously scary (for under10s) Meadow Vole Maze where one experiences life as a vole with gigantic predators about!

Here’s their website if you want a closer look.