The Lake District abounds with attractive B&Bs, guest-houses, and hostels. It needs them all when the summer hordes threaten the serenity of this Romantic-era mecca.
Many Keswick listings charge extra for a one-night stay and most won’t book one-night stays on weekends. Most don’t welcome young children. And none of them have elevators – most have quite a few stairs – so keep that in mind if you have trouble with stairs… or have a ton of luggage to get up and down them. 🙂
Jackie and I chose the classy area known as The Heads to focus our lodging search. The Heads has B&Bs with bigger and grander Victorian architecture and great views overlooking the pitch-and-putt range and out into the hilly distance. Parking in this area can get a little tricky – there is free parking on the golf course side… one of our favorite past times was watching drivers try to force their cars into incredibly small spaces. 🙂
We chose Burleigh Mead B&B as our home away from home. This is the second time I’ve stayed here – first in August in a smaller single room and this time in their suite on the 2nd floor. The Burleigh Mead is a slate mansion from 1892. Run by Gill (short for Gillian), there are seven rooms. Gill is a welcome friendly face – her young daughter is also a treasure. It has a nice lounge and a peaceful front-yard sitting area that’s perfect for enjoying the view.
We stayed in the suite on the 2nd floor that enjoys the large bay window you can see from the outside view. The outer windows open that allows a nice breeze in on those not-so-common warm days in the Lake District.
The room was very large by British/European Standards – we’d say it was large by any standard. Not only did you have this nice relaxing area to watch the world slow down outside your bay window, you had another sizeable seating area with a couch and chair. It also had a working desk – something not seen in too many B&Bs anywhere.
The bathroom is a typical smaller bathroom than most Americans are used to. In these older homes, they were mostly added later by adjusting an existing room. So it is the normal long and narrow. Everything works well – and a nice mirror was in the main area for Jackie to get ready in the morning.
We enjoyed our stay at the Burleigh Mead. Thank You Gill for your kind hospitality. We look forward to our next visit to Keswick and would strongly recommend you consider the Burleigh Mead as your home-away-from-home.
That wraps up our time in the Lakes District. We’ve caught up our posts thru Day 12. We’re half-way thru our trip! Next up – we head into Scotland – first visiting the Loch lowlands on our way to Oban, and then the highland glory of the Glencoe Valley before heading back down into the lowlands to Edinburgh.