Lake District Cottages

Lake District cottages are widely available to suit a great variety of holiday needs, from solo visitors and couples to large groups of family and friends. At one end of the spectrum you can find the basic clean and tidy accommodation you might want if your priority is simply to have a bed and a place to put your boots before getting out again into the hills. At the other end of the scale there's superluxury.

Holiday cottages in the Lake District are often modernised or developed from buildings two or three hundred years old, many originally built as farmhouses or as labourers' cottages close to a farm. Others may be the former homes of miners and quarrymen who worked in what were for centuries major industries of Lakeland. More recently, however, barn conversions have become popular, so that self-catering accommodation is often located in what were once farm outbuildings. This provides for an interesting variety of properties for holiday rental and there are, of course, more recently built units dating back just a decade or two.

Choosing your Lake District Cottage

You can find cottages in the Lake District to rent in many beautiful locations, and that includes in the busy towns and villages. You can also find them in remote spots, high on hillsides and deep in valleys, far from the crowds. Some people like to rent in the less-visited areas away from the Lake District heart, for example in the beautiful Eden Valley or on the West Cumbria coast. This allows for a quiet holiday, and yet it is easy to drive into the main centres.

That mention of driving reminds me to say that if you're visiting for the first time you should be sure to look carefully at a contour map of the Lake District when choosing a cottage to rent. Remember that the middle of Cumbria consists of mountains. Roads across them are few, can be steep and narrow, and in some cases are certainly not for drivers of a nervous disposition. If you have places in mind that you'd especially like to visit remember that you may have to drive around the outside of the mountain range to get to them. The distance are not vast, but if you are thinking of a holiday with relatively little time behind the wheel choose your Cumbrian cottage location carefully.

Being a Responsible Lake District Holiday Cottage Visitor

In some parts of the Lake District there is now so much holiday accommodation that it has become a problem for the local population, and this leads me to make an appeal. Village shops need customers if they are to survive. Already many village schools have disappeared as local young people cannot afford to live in what have become substantially holiday villages. Post offices have vanished, and village stores often follow. Please patronise the local shop rather than drive twenty miles to a superstore. It may be a bit more expensive but set against what you're paying for your holiday cottage rental it will be a very small percentage. What's more, a walk down the lane doesn't use petrol.

More on Lake District Accommodation

My main site and blog, Around-England.co.uk, carries much more information on

Accommodation in Cumbria – The Lake District

Or click here for: Holiday Cottages in the Lake District

Enjoy your Lake District Holiday

and remember, you can find much about this and other areas of the North of England (which, by the way, has no less than four beautiful National Parks) at Around-England.co.uk.