Stay & Play
Luxury in Lakeland: The Storrs Hall Hotel
Article and photography by Nicholas Kontis
England’s Lake District (“Lakeland”) has lured travelers since the Victorian era. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017, it is the United Kingdom’s premier national park district, attracting nearly 20 million visitors each year. Its fame springs from the 19th-century romantic verse of lyrical poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom found solace and inspiration in the picturesque backdrop and rocky hilltops.
Storrs Hall, a luxurious four-star hotel, overlooks a splendid stretch of Lake Windermere’s southern shoreline—just a five-minute drive from the tourist village of Bowness with its shops, pubs and restaurants.
A hotel since 1895, the handsome manor dates from 1797, when it was constructed as a lakeside villa by Yorkshire landowner Sir John Legard. Later, Liverpool merchant John Bolton extended the property to 17 acres with manicured gardens amidst a forested park. Bolton added huge, lattice-framed windows that gaze across Windermere’s waters, welcoming copious amounts of glistening lake light.
Style and rooms
Besides its indulgent lakefront grounds, the independently run manor, mimicking a country estate, has a sublime interior that is at once stately yet relaxed. Cabinets and nooks flaunt granite busts and model clipper ships, some of the vestiges of original furnishings auctioned off by previous owners.
Today Storrs Hall has 35 rooms, including six adults-only woodland cabins with Japanese-style hot tubs adjacent to the waterfront. The former boathouse has been converted into a lakefront suite with a hot tub and fire pit. The 28 rooms in the main Georgian-style carriage house are period classics with contemporary features such as king-size beds, chaise longues, smart TVs, coffee makers, and bathrooms with free-standing baths and walk-in showers.
Marriage ceremonies are held outside the stone temple gazebo, and three rooms are licensed for weddings.
In decades past, lake steamers would pick up and drop off guests at the Storrs Hall pier. That’s no longer an option, but the estate’s low-key intimacy remains in touch with its ethos of Victorian etiquette.
Dining and activities
Chef Andrew Beaton, a native Cumbrian, helms the Storrs Hall kitchen. Breakfast and dinner, served in the Lake Edge Restaurant, feature a locally sourced, seasonal menu. Seafood is taken from nearby Morecambe Bay, lamb from the Cumbrian mountains and Yew Tree Farm, once owned by author Beatrix Potter.
The ornate, mahogany Tower Bar serves curated cocktails and light meals in a serene traditional pub setting. Or enjoy the quintessential British experience of afternoon tea, with homemade pastries and clotted-cream scones.
Windermere is England’s largest lake, and its picturesque setting amid the Cumbrian mountains lends itself to such adventures as bicycling, guided walks, waterfall hikes, rock climbing, off-road touring and even golf. Watersports, naturally, are most popular; they include swimming, paddle boarding, kayaking, boat and ferry tours. Culture vultures can tour craft breweries or explore William Wordsworth’s daffodil gardens and the World of Beatrix Potter (and Peter Rabbit).
“You can sense that people are relaxing the minute they arrive,” said Storrs Hall general manager Andrew Nicholson. “It is such a tranquil environment.”
www.storrshall.com
