B&B accommodation of an unusually high quality just a mile or so outside Carlise in Cumbria. Architect designed house with mature gardens.
Address is Lambley Bank, Scotby, Carlisle, Cumbria CA4 8BX. Website: www.willowbeck-lodge.com.
Telephone 01228 513607
The farm shop which is joined on to the garden center at Houghton hall is fantastic. A great range of local produce, amazing lemon curd, jams, cheese. Possibly the best beef i have ever tasted - nicely matured not like the usual supermarket dross. Friendly staff who seemed to know not only about the products they were selling but also the producers. Well worth a quick 2 minute detour off the motorway. Also a very nice coffee shop.
Houghton Hall Farm shop
just off junction 44 of M6.
north Carlisle near to Kingstown.
Buy your coffee beans, have them ground, Gaggia and Bodum kit for sale as well as old sweet jars full of bright wrappers and lots of bars of chocolate.
A fabulously unpretentious, comfortable, welcoming cafe which wears its history, tradition and quality on its working sleeve and oh, to smell the coffees - roasted just next door, the smoke and steam bellowing out into the street before you!
Fine, local home-made food and a sweet counter to drool over with fabulous Cumbrian tray bakes.
Many of the Cumbrian market town dwellers look down on Carlisle and many areas have all the character and panache of a sodden sponge skewered on the branch of a wintry tree in a park in Ordsall but John Watts is to make any Carlisle visit worthwhile to the power of 100.
City Centre pedestrianised area, just down from HSBC
The Travellers and Gypsy annual horse fair in Appleby, Westmoreland is held on the second weekend of June. Stay locally at the Manor Hotel which is costly, or take a day trip from Carlisle. The Carlisle to Settle train stops at Appleby. Watch the horses being washed in the local river followed by the horse parade. Wander around the fields to see people involved in old crafts such as shoe shodding, embroidery, making wooden pegs and fortune telling.
The community camp in modern campervans and the traditional Vardos are all over the fields. In the evening, watch the horse and buddy races. It's great to be amongst this community mostly ignored by the mainstream. Eat and drink locally or in the pub.
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