A Bank Holiday weekend, is the perfect opportunity to spend a few wonderful days with my little family and I have to say, I love nothing more. Forgetting about the busyness that is back home, the usual day to day things and you know, life. A few days away to just be together, explore and laugh, it was just what we needed.
After browsing Cottages.com (the new cottages4u) for hours, I finally came across this wonderful little cottage called “The Old Stables“, that was just perfect for our little family of four. We decided to go away without the dogs this weekend, so they went to have their own little holiday and we had a weekend of concentrating on the children. Little did we know, the cottage sat on part of an estate called Ireby Estate and it was full of history, nature and interesting things to see. Both the children and the grown ups loved every minute of our weekend.
We arrived Friday evening at 10pm, after a long 4.5 hour journey, and we couldn’t see anything outside. We didn’t know what to expect when we woke up, but the cottage looked quaint with some wonderful stone features that had been kept from the renovation work. The owners, the Gurney family, left a photo album on the side, full of photos from the renovation stages and also historical photos from when the older generations owned the estate. There used to be an old stately home called The Grange, that sat metres from the cottage, all that remained were little hidden signs that a family once lived here on this estate. It was fascinating. Searching for the hidden parts of the old garden has inspired me on my children’s story idea that I have been working on for months now, with little inspiration, this location was what I needed.
When we woke up on Saturday morning, we were very pleasantly surprised, the views out of the lounge and kitchen windows went on for miles. You could see cottages on the hills the other side of the valley and the immediate gardens full of trees and wildlife kept you entertained for hours. We would sit at the breakfast bar looking out at the birds and end up sitting there for quite some time. It was nice not having the children charge off to go and play, they liked soaking up the scenery as much as we did.
Saturday was a busy day, but a chilled out one too, we walked around High Ireby and found lots of baby lambs in the hills, we then went to explore the hidden gems in the gardens of Ireby Estate and then after lunch we took a walk up Binsey Hill. The children did it too, 1500ft and lots of snow fights at the top. It was a lot of fun. You could see for miles, Scotland one way, the coast another and snowy topped mountains in the opposite direction. The walk down was definitely a lot quicker than going up!
Sunday was a little drizzly, but we still managed to get out, this time we drove 15 minutes around lake Bassenthwaite and walked up Sale Fen. This was not as high as Binsey Hill, the wind and rain didnt help, we got as far as we could before the children were not enjoying it anymore. Then we had a pitstop in the local pub, The Pheasant Inn, which was recommended by the owners of Ireby Estate. We agreed it was a lovely place to stop, the bar was over 500 years old and it looked full of history and stories. We could have sat there all afternoon.
Here is a little video of our Saturday in the Lake District, some snippets of the Old Stables, the beautiful grounds and our fun up Binsey Hill:
A huge thank you to Cottages.com for sending us to The Old Stables, we had a fabulous Bank Holiday with some lovely family memories to share forever. All opinions are my own.