The highest pub in England’s Lake District - Kirkstone Pass Inn
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I sat eating hot homemade soup with my boots drying in front of the old log fire and felt totally relaxed in this pub. So I thought it deserves a good mention among the luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants on TheTravelEditor.com.
The Kirkstone Pass Inn is the highest house in Cumbria, the third highest pub in Britain - and one of the friendliest inns I can remember. Foreign tourists must wonder at this wonderful example of the ancient English ale house.
The Inn stands at a windy 1,500ft, at the head of the Kirkstone Pass a north-to-south gap between mountains. Through this tight gap a winding road links Patterdale and the northern lakes with Windermere and the south. A side road branches off to Ambleside here. It’s so small, steep, winding and difficult locals have called it ‘The Struggle’ for hundreds of years.
The roads meet at this bleak and weather-beaten spot amid bracing winds, streams and boulders. 2,000ft mountains climb almost from the front and back doors. Poet William Wordsworth, who lived down at Rydal to the south, walked this pass many times. The imposing gap between the mountains he described as “Height’s inverted archway”.
Cradled by these peaks is the squat, whitewashed stronghold of a pub. With its thick stone walls, small windows and a stupendous heavy wooden door, the Kirkstone Pass Inn forms a fortress against the outside.
While I was there a police roadblock stood in the road outside - the route to Patterdale was closed because of floods and stone slides. Sometimes these narrow roads are closed by snow and ice. But most often they are blocked by tourists as the summer brings hundreds of motorists up from the lakes to explore.
In the peak season, there’s a busy summer café atmosphere here, with busy tables outside and food orders being rushed to and fro. When I visited it was very different - and I think better. The huge door would regularly creak open and a bedraggled refugee from the elements would stagger inside, firmly slamming the door safely behind. This sense of a refuge was so strong that all the customers started talking to newcomers. “Where have you come from today?” or “How are the roads?” For two days I was there, chatting to a room of ever-changing strangers. Walkers thawed for a while discussing their routes, lost souls found themselves while sampling a sponge cake and custard, intrepid rosy-cheeked families huddled round the fire excitedly mixing with serious mountain people.
The landlords are a friendly, helpful and ecologically sensitive young couple - refreshingly new to the job. Apart from them though all the things I’d normally rate in a review in decidedly average: the homely food means this is certainly no gastro pub, there’s a small choice of beer (although I loved the special ‘Red Screes’ named after the mountain opposite the pub), the furniture and artefacts may have been left there gathering dust for 30 years.
But sitting with my socks resting on the time-worn slate slab floor, sipping homemade broccoli soup with a chunk of bread, I felt more at home than I have ever done in the Lake District.
So at home, in fact, that I stayed. Suddenly the guesthouses and boutique hotels of Windermere seemed a superficial waste of money. Up the winding stone staircase the inn’s bedrooms again are nothing special. They’re ensuite, but so simple they’re almost bland, so small, they’re almost pokey. There’s a TV but no reception, just a box of DVDs downstairs to borrow. The bedside radio was tuned to Radio Cumbria. Better rooms have a view from the front of the pub.
My room was just £32.50 because the linen van had got stuck in the floods. There was only a single duvet on a double bed. The landlady laughed. So did I. It was fine.
If that’s too pricey, £8.50 gets you a bunk bed among 11 others in the converted stone barn alongside, bedding and hot shower included. While I was there a smart lady from Windermere was enquiring if she could book a bunk for Christmas Eve.
Contact tel: +44 1539 433 888, e-mail:
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Kirkstone Pass Inn, Cumbria
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