Food in the Lake District-Part 1 Eating In
Holiday cooking is different from cooking at home. Shopping for food as a tourist in Cumbria with a detour through Lancashire.
I used to have a dual life. I went to work in a suit and then at the weekend, I swopped my heels for walking boots and whizzed up the motorways in shared cars to Cumbria, the Peak District or Snowdonia, staying in mountain huts or camping. I was in a mountaineering club and we went with enough food for remote places, divided between various car boots. These days, I like the comfort of a bed rather than a bunk, privacy instead of the communality of a dorm and I like to buy local food.
It was the Tinder, Hinge or Bumble of its day. I first met my husband at East Putney Station, when he was designated to give me a lift to Derbyshire. As we were talking so much, we missed the turning off the M1 and went around roundabouts twice to find the right way in the dark. He says you don’t see the same people second time around. Some things never change.
What I do
I keep food simple on holiday with three food lists, staples to take from home, supermarket supplies to get there and meat, cheese, fish, bread to buy from farm shops and markets. The Lake District is not especially known for its home grown fruit and veg, apart from maybe damsons in the Lyth Valley, so these come from a supermarket.
I buy cheese, because that is always a complete meal and pâté, charcuterie, smoked fish; anything I see that is easy and feels like a holiday treat.Â
An overnight stay
At Easter, we stayed a night at the Assheton Arms near Clitheroe on Maundy Thursday to avoid the Bank Holiday traffic. We managed to book this for the last night of their winter escape offer at a bargain price of £120 including a £20 allowance to each of our dinners, and it was excellent.
Lancashire
The next day, we drove over the A65 through Settle and Kirkby Lonsdale to Kendal and then up northwards through the Lake District to our cottage in Matterdale near Ullswater. It was a carefully calibrated and researched route to do food shopping.
First stop, Gazehill Farm near Clitheroe where they sell their own organic meat and we were told, there are normally six butchers working there, fulfilling online orders. I bought rack of lamb for Easter Sunday, sausages, bacon and beef mince to take home.
Butcher ‘Did you want it back packed?’Â
Me, (said with horror,) ‘No,’ I’m far too old for backpacking these days.’
Butcher ‘No, vac packed and then it will last two weeks in the fridge.’
 The next stop was Courtyard Dairy near Settle where we bought Stone beck, a Lancashire cheese, made from a small herd of twelve cows, Stichelton, and a Hafod Cheddar, as well as membrillo for a cheeseboard.
Had we gone a different way, straight up the M6, I might have arranged a diversion to Goosnargh to Mrs Kirkham’s cheese to buy not only their famous Lancashire cheese but other cheeses as well as Sillfield Farm bacon & sausage and other deli products.
Lake District south
There are two main ways into the Lake District from the M6, the A591 to Windermere and the A590 to Ulverston in the South and the A66 to Keswick and beyond in the North.
Low Sizergh Barn farm shop and café is just off the A591. In the past I have bought cheese from Rostock Dairy there as well as bacon from Richard Woodall of Waberthwaite amongst other purchases.
Sizergh, is a medieval house run by the National Trust, with a pretty garden and a café, of course and a good place to have a rest and a walk. It’s nearby but not in the same place.
I can’t forget the supermarkets. There's a Sainsburys in Kendal as well as Lidl, Asda and a Booths. Other Booths abound throughout Lancashire and Cumbria.
More the Artisan Bakery, at Staveley, sells sourdough bread and cakes, and has a café where they serve home made soups, sandwiches, pies and pastries. We bought sourdough and ate hot sausage rolls and shared a slice of millionaires’ shortbread.
Other places I’ve been in the past are Cartmel cheeses in Cartmel and the butchers, Higginsons in Grange, who sell a magnificent variety of both pies and sausages as well as all the normal meats
The north
If going straight along the A66 to Keswick, I would always stop on the way or on the way home at Tebay Services, as immortalised in the TV programmes, which has shops on either side of the motorway. They have meat straight from their farm two or three miles away or other local farms. They also work with more than 70 producers within a 30-mile radius of Tebay Services and sell bread from the Artisan Bakery.
I keep cooking really simple; its not the time for to try out new recipes.
My new find was Chelaris, a fishing boat, at Maryport. I ordered a dozen scallops for a tenner on Facebook which we then collected from the quay and shucked. Now they are selling langoustines and other fresh fish. It was a long way to drive, so I would probably only do that again if staying on the West.
Another post coming on favourite mountains, walks and eating out.
Wow, just discovered you after you subscribed to my Substack (thanks!🥰). Love this so much! I've been to the Lake District (an aunt and uncle once had a beautiful stone cottage there that I visited with my mother when I was six--now long gone as, sadly, is she and they), but now I would love to go back and discover Cumbria again, following your tips on where to stop and what to eat. Thanks o much!
Adore this post. Photographs are divine and just on the right side of perfect to compliment your writing which by the way conjures a hankering to follow in your footsteps xx