Seathwaite Farm Camping – it’s not just all about the location…but it helps!
The tiny hamlet of Seathwaite lies almost at the heart of the Lake District, some 8 miles south-west of the popular visitor town of Keswick. Seathwaite Farm makes up most of this remote hamlet at the end of a valley – one road in and one road out.
The drive from Keswick to Seathwaite through the Borrowdale valley is spectacular, the roads are good but the views are amazing! You could easily spend a day or two exploring what’s immediately off just this road; Great Wood, Derwentwater, Ashness Bridge up on the left. Further on there’s Lodore Falls, the Bowder Stone, the villages of Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite – all of which have spectacular views and walks!
And all that before you even summit your first hill or arrive at Seathwaite!
What should you expect when you arrive at Seathwaite Farm Campsite? Well, the Lake District has some truly amazing locations (it now has Unesco World Heritage status so equals the importance of the Grand canyon or Machu Picchu) but if ever there was a perfect location for a campsite in Cumbria then surely Seathwaite Farm is it!
The main camping field is easily accessible and, given its valley floor location, has lots of level space to pitch your tent or park your motor-home.
This is heavenly peace and tranquillity – the perfect place to truly enjoy the great outdoors.
But what is there to do?
The Lake District is not huge so nothing is beyond about an hours car drive. But you don’t want to be spending all that time in a car so let’s start with what to do outdoors.
Fell Walking
No, it’s not a description of an accident that happened to someone ambling along; ‘fell’ is the Cumbrian term for a big hill or mountain. Fell walking is probably the most common pastime, sport, adventure or reason that many people come to the Cumbrian Lake District for. Aside from the fact the area has all ten of the top-ten highest mountains in England (seven of which are over 3000 feet) there are literally hundreds of both high and low-level walks for people of all abilities, there are even 48 routes across the National Park suitable for people with limited mobility, including wheelchair users, families with pushchairs and the visually impaired (see the Lake District National Park website).
Seathwaite Farm Campsite has become one of the most popular starting points for access to mountains such as Great End, Great Gable, Green Gable, Brown Base, Glaramara and Scafell Pike – the latter being the highest mountain in England standing at 3200 feet. But, as we mentioned earlier, not all walks require super-human endurance or all day to complete; checkout some of the walks and information on these sites to find something to suit you:
Be Prepared: Have a look at the last link above for some great guidance on what you need to know and how you should prepare before packing just your flip-flops!
Go Visit Somewhere
The one thing that Seathwaite has, being in the popular Borrowdale Valley, is a bus service, so if you want to leave the car or motor-home where it is then walk down the end of the lane and hop on a bus. With Keswick one way and Buttermere the other there are loads of places to head for.
Keswick must have something for everyone. There are three parks, museums, a cinema, a theatre, all sorts of visitor attractions, outdoor clothing and equipment shops by the score and more pubs, cafes and restaurants than you could shake a proverbial stick at. See the official Keswick visitor website here.
In the direction of Buttermere the first visitor attraction is the Honister Slate Mine with it’s extreme Via Ferrata, mine tours, climbing and lots more – see their website for more.
Beyond Honister the valley that follows leads to the lovely and popular village of Buttermere. The walk around the lake is simply magical and there are many places for a picnic – the ice-cream from the village afterwards is a bonus to end such an excellent trip. Of course you could also stop for lunch or dinner at either The Bridge Inn, The Fish Inn or either of the two cafes, Croft house Farm or Sykes Farm Tea Room
After Buttermere come the lakes of Crummock Water and Loweswater again both of which have some amazing surroundings but no specific attractions other than the natural beauty.
And beyond that…
Of course things don’t finish at either Keswick or Buttermere. The market town of Cockermouth, the birthplace of Wordsworth, is well worth a visit. There’s a brewery here too if you want to know, purely for research purposes of course, how beer is made – see the Jennings website.
A little further north is Carlisle which is excellently introduced on the Discover Carlisle website. Just a stone’s throw further is yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site; Hadrian’s Wall if you have an interest in either the Romans or historical Britain.
Going south of the county from Seathwaite and the Borrowdale Valley, after you’ve travelled back up to keswick, there are the extremely popular visitor villages of Grasmere (where Wordsworth lived out most of his life), then onto Ambleside, beyond that Windermere and South Lakeland.
We think that whatever you would like to do on a camping holiday (and there’s more ideas on our Things to do page) that it’s not likely to be that far from Seathwaite Farm Campsite. Maybe we’ll see you soon.