Bev Peacock – Holker Hall recce

We have done three recces for this walk, a little bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first was too steep, the second had fallen trees and was too hard but the third one was, well that one was just right (and if not hard luck as I am not looking at any more).
I personally like this walk and have enjoyed every recce we have done, even where we had to go back as the fallen tree was that gigantic, we couldn’t get over it, we couldn’t get under it, we couldn’t get around it, and we certainly couldn’t get through it, so no bear hunt that day.
It is 7.75Km, just short of 5 miles, and I think is suitable for everyone. We do have a couple of inclines, but they are ok.

This is the walk:
We leave Holker Hall and have a short walk on the B5278, we then cut off and pass through Long Scar onto How Barrow, along what they call the coastal path (if I remember rightly) but we are nowhere near the coast, we just get plenty of spectacular views of Cartmel Sands and Leven Viaduct. I am sure the lighthouse in the distance is Hoad Monument (proper name: the Sir John Barrow Monument).
We pass close to a wind turbine then walk along a country lane, passing a small pond and an exceedingly small waterfall, before walking past Walton Hal Farm.
We then cross over a small stone FB (footbridge) and hope we have not had too much rain or we could be getting our feet wet (kidding I hope) and on into Cartmel, where we will have lunch, there are four picnic tables and other benches around the racecourse. We may be spending a little bit of time in Cartmel, as the route back to Holker is a comfortable walk and only took us about 40 mins. But we will see how long it takes us to get to Cartmel then decide if you want to spend time there or head back after lunch for time in Holker and the deer park. I have not included a walk around the deer park, but we can if people want to, we could do this on our return depending on time.
Hopefully, the deer will be out in the park, which is free to walk around and does have the wonderful artwork by Julie Brook called “Out of the Ground, A Thread of Air” we should all climb this and have a photo taken.
Holker has a café and sells beautiful cakes.
There is a shop which does sell plants, but not cheap. You can explore the house and gardens the cost for this is:

Tickets are:
Hall and Garden £15.
Garden only £11.50
Historic Houses members get free entry.
RHS is 2 tickets for 1.

Hopefully you all have a wonderful day, we have every time we have recced it.

And on a different note, on one recce we came out of park wood at Cartmel and spotted the unmistakable white Ian Hegarty coach sat in the car park. Passing across the racecourse was a group of walkers, with someone chasing after them, yes it was our very own Margaret, who quickly shouted ‘Hi Bev, can’t stop, trying to catch up’ before dashing off ( she was about 3 walkers from the front). We then found Ian fixing a broken door on his coach. Things they say come in threes as who else did we spot, none other than our very own Denis sitting in the car park reading, talk about a small world.