If the gushing falls, rumbling rivers, and soaring peaks aren’t enough, Scafell Lodge pinches ten acres of garden, meadow, and woodland from this expansive, tumbling landscape. Then it plants a pair of hot tubs right under the multiplying madness of a zillion stars. Get your aurora alerts on standby and prime your glass of prosecco.
Come home from the walking or cycling the fells and drop your togs in the Alpine-style boot room with heated boot warmers. Leave your bike in the 16-bay storage unit. Play giant Jenga or stretch out for a downward dog in the Zen Den garden room. And paddle, swim or fish in the two rivers that run along the edge of the property.
Things here across the main house and lodge are a little bit zen, a little bit Scandi, and an awful lot like a good time. Scafell Lodge is the luxurious still point of the high and wild torrent of nature that is the western Lakes. This is a world of wood panelling, deep-pile carpets, soft sofas, and burning logs.
Within it, you’ll find time to get together with your feet up in the cinema room, with its 83-inch screen and Sky and BT packages (bring your streaming passwords too). Need to escape? There’s alternative viewing in the living room and lodge. Climb the fells, bathe in the lakes, recover in a profusion of luxury living.
Cook up a stew with a view in the open-plan kitchen/dining/lounge area with the meadow beyond the huge glass bifold doors pointing the way to the River Esk and the Lakeland fells beyond. It’s a NEFF slide-and-hide oven in a fully equipped space, but if you’d prefer a night off, let us recommend your own private chef.
Shops in this epic wilderness are thin on the ground, so stock up before you stay. There’s a Tesco 20 miles away, a Booth’s a little further, and Eskdale Stores for your daily basics. Don’t forget the milk. Get wine from Richardson’s and your pastries from Gosforth Bakery. Refuel for fell walks on egg rolls and bacon sarnies from Fellbites.
Night off? You’ve two pubs to walk to in the village. Pop in to The Brook House Inn for T-bone lamb with garlic or sea-bream fillets. Fill up on Cumberland sausage or chunky steak chilli at The Boot Inn. Try The Woolpack for burgers, scampi, trout salad or vegan chilli washed down with wine from all over the world.
Restaurants? Irton Hall, if you can get there, offers an impressive selection of real ales and fine wines and delicious home-cooked meals and Sunday roasts in the lounge bar. Or head to the Scafell Pike Hotel for 8oz sirloin steak with Café de Paris butter- mushrooms, or wild mushroom and green vegetable risotto.
You’ll sleep well here, with the two brooks babbling past and the occasional hoot of an owl offering the reassuring certainty that you’re resting in the cradle of nature. Scafell Lodge sleeps 16 across two properties.
In the main house, bedroom one offers a superking or two singles, an en-suite shower and freestanding bath. Bedrooms two and three have a superking or two singles plus an en-suite shower with a bath in bedroom three’s en-suite. Bedroom four also offers a superking or singles plus an en-suite shower. The fifth bedroom gives you the option of a superking or two single beds and bedroom six provides a set of bunk beds, both offering their own en-suite shower.
In the coach house, bedroom one on the first floor mezzanine is a superking with an en-suite shower and a freestanding bath. Lastly, bedroom two on the ground floor offers a superking which converts to singles and offers an en-suite shower.
