Sykehouse Cottage

A beautiful C17th Holiday Cottage in the Lake District

Category Archives: National Trust


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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.


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Dorothy’s Christmas Birthday

dorothy-wordsworths-christmas-birthday-978144727150501

“Up, rapt at her gate,
Dorothy Wordsworth ages
one year in an hour;

her Christmas birthday
inventoried by an owl,
clock-eyed, time-keeper.”

It was published as a small hardback book by panmacmillan in 2014 and is a perfect Lake District Christmas present.


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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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Townend: A Quiet Jewel

townendTownend : A Quiet Jewel.

East of Windermere is an historical treasure that we have a special interest in – for it was built around about the same time as Sykehouse Cottage.  It’s attached to no famous name and therefore doesn’t attract the crowds – like that other farm on the west of the Lake, Hill Top, does – but for a delightful insight into 400 years of Lakeland life, Townsend is perfect.  The Browne family was an ordinary farming family but their home at Troutbeck is a beautiful evocation of a past life and well worth a detour to visit.  The place is crammed full of quirky household objects from c17th onwards.  There are excellent, informative guided tours and often they put on an afternoon of cooking where they recreate some of the recipes from the Brownes’ family recipe books.

Townend is a National Trust property and is open from March to October.  It’s about 20 miles from the Cottage and for further details on opening times and prices, follow this link.


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Tarn Hows

Tarn HowsTarn Hows is another favourite walk of ours – particularly when we have friends with pushchairs or just want to “walk and talk” instead of concentrating on finding the next sheep track, as it’s a stunningly pretty round walk on smooth paths with plenty of benches along the way.  The place is owned by the National Trust, has a well managed car park – and possibly an ice cream van in high season.  They even have a couple of those nifty Tramper scooters giving people who are less mobile a chance to roam a little.  So, if you are staying at Sykehouse Cottage and fancy a stroll rather than a hike, Tarn Hows is the place for you.  It’s only 25 minutes from Broughton in Furness, past Coniston Water.

For all its natural beauty, the tarn is artificial.  It was created in the mid C19th by the owner out of three much smaller, boggier pools.  He also landscaped the area, building the footpaths and planting the magnificent, non-native trees such as the Giant Sequoia which give the place a rather Scottish feel.  Tarn Hows was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1965 with red squirrels, Herdwick sheep, both red and roe deer and Daubenton’s (or water) bats living in the area.

Tarn Hows is open dawn to dusk all year round.  Further details can be found on the National Trust website here.


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Wallowbarrow Round Walk

Stepping Stones across the DuddonAt Easter, we tramped through the snow around Wallowbarrow.  This is one of our very favourite walks: a beautiful, quiet river and woodland walk along the Duddon in National Trust land.   It can be as long or as short as you want and has the added bonus of starting/ending at the wonderful Newfield Inn.

In the Summer, we often picnic on a river beach and sometimes even take a dip at Watersmeet where the Tarn Beck meets the river Duddon.  But today we were just grateful that someone had been around before us to tamp down the snow – which in places was higher than our wellies!Memorial Bridge

CawWe wandered about for an hour and finished with lunch at the Newfield.  Run by Paul, this c17th inn at Seathwaite has great, hearty food for walkers, a log fire and a fine selection of local beer.  This lunchtime we ate their famous steak pie and Cumberland sausage and sampled Barngates’ Catnap and Cumberland’s Corby Ale.  Click here for their website.