Travel: Fantastic food and a private wood at the Wild Boar in Windermere

We crossed Lake Windermere then took a shuttle bus (a charming adapted milk cart driven by a friendly chap) to Ambleside town centre. After browsing the pretty shops, we hopped on the 599 and sat in the sunshine on the open-top deck. It was a lovely way to approach Grasmere, which has some of the best views in the Lake District. Not for nothing did William Wordsworth call it “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found”.

I love the Lakes all year round, and it has a special beauty in winter. But in the intense summer heat of last week, it felt like being on the Riviera when my sister and I enjoyed a short break in the South Lakelands.

Each room has its own style

We stayed at the Wild Boar, a 17th century inn set in a 72-acre private woodland in the Gilpin Valley, between Kendal and Bowness. It’s a charming rustic hotel, with low beams, log fires, stone-flagged floors and its own smokehouse and micro-brewery. Each elegant room has its own style, including a de-luxe bridal suite. Our chic, spacious room had a wood-burning stove and a view of the woodland.

The tarn in the Wild Boar wood

After a walk in the wood, which has a scenic tarn, we dined in the Wild Boar’s Grill & Smokehouse Restaurant, where home-cooked dishes and home-brewed beers are served in rustic comfort and cosy candlelight. The staff were excellent and really friendly; we felt very well looked after.

The Wild Boar is a traditional Lakeland inn

We had tasty starters - king prawn linguine for me and a fabulous asparagus dish from the specials board for Sophie. Among the other choices are Smoked Loch Duart Salmon, with pickled cucumber, wasabi and avocado, and Wild Boar and Apple Scotch Egg.

Hearty home-cooked food at the Wild Boar

The varied main dish menu includes Roast Rump of Cumbrian Lamb, Grilled Fillet of Gilt Head Bream and Scottish Mussels Marinier. I had delicious Sweet Potato and Cashew Massaman Curry, with coconut rice and cucumber salad, and Sophie was delighted with her Char-Grilled Portuguese Espetada - Shawarma Spiced Lamb served with Lebanese red slaw, hummus, tzatziki, olives, stuffed chillies and flat bread.

We were nicely full, but went for desserts anyway. I was tempted by the fruit sorbet on a neighbouring table - a lovely couple who’d driven down from Eaglesham near Glasgow to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary - but ended up with Pistachio and Strawberry Arctic Roll with strawberry and mint salad and white chocolate crumble - because, why wouldn’t I? Sophie had mouth-watering sticky toffee pudding, with salted caramel sauce.

The Wild Boar has a cosy, rustic charm

The breakfast menu boasts in-house smoked haddock, home-made granola, Lancashire Cheese and Mad Pig Ale Rarebit and freshly baked pastries. Next morning, after a hearty start (me: sweet potato rosti with wild mushroom, baby spinach and poached egg. Sophie: scrambled eggs on artisan toast) we drove to Bowness, just 10 minutes away, and bought tickets for a Windermere Lake Cruises passenger ferry.

Crossing Lake Windermere on the ferry

I’ve been on Lake Windermere many times - I once managed to fall out of a canoe into it on a school trip - but I don’t know much about it, other than it being the largest lake in England. Listening in to the tour guide commentary on the boat, I learned that Windermere has 18 islands, is 220ft deep, and in the summer of 1930 Sir Henry Segrave broke the world water speed record on it, but died shortly after his boat capsized.

The ferry stopped at Windermere Jetty Museum then Brockhole visitor centre, where family attractions include a Treetop Trek, caving tunnels and archery, before arriving at Ambleside on the north side. It’s a pretty town, popular with walkers and holiday-makers, but usually I just drive through it to reach other places, so it was nice to wander round. We passed a delightful cluster of cottages overlooking a water wheel and Bridge House, a summer house built over the beck more than 300 years ago, now Grade I listed and National Trust-owned, and headed up to Stock Ghyll Force, a spectacular waterfall. Stock Ghyll and other local becks once powered 12 watermills in the area.

The waterfall at Ambleside

From Ambleside we went to Grasmere and wandered (not quite lonely as clouds) through the Wordsworth Daffodil Garden. In spring it has 10,000 daffodils in bloom. William Wordsworth is buried at St Oswald’s Church, as peaceful and lovely as a little country church can be. As we left we caught the sweet aroma of “the world’s best gingerbread” - Victorian cook Sarah Nelson’s Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.

A short walk away is Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s home, where he wrote some of his best-known poetry. Little has changed since the Wordsworths lived there from 1799-1808. I went there on a previous visit and recall his cutlass chair where he sat to write, and the fellside garden restored to the half-wild beauty that he cultivated with his sister, Dorothy. If you go, make sure to sit a while on the wooden seat at the top of their ‘domestic slip of mountain’ for a stunning view of the valley.

After a day in the heat, we welcomed a dip in the pool at the super cool Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa on Windermere shoreline (Wild Boar guests can use the spa at this sister hotel in the English Lakes group, after 5.30pm).

Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa

Next day, after I’d indulged in a breakfast of Treacle Cured Salmon, smoked in-house over whisky barrel wood chips, with poached eggs on sourdough bread, (Wild Boar Breakfast for Sophie), we hit the road.

It had been a perfect summer mini-break in the gorgeous Gilpin Valley.

* The Wild Boar, Crook Road, Windermere. Call 0330 4042 110 or visit englishlakes.co.uk

Owl sculpture in the woods