Englethwaite Hall and Carlisle

The drive to the Caravan Club’s Englethwaite Hall site at Cotehill was an easy one, and we had our first drive on a motorway for months!  On arrival the wardens weren’t about, so we just found ourselves a pitch and set up, Phil was glad to have tarmac again and so went out on the unicycle for an hour.  When we booked in the warden told us a bit about Englethwaite Hall, which was built in 1865 by Joseph Robinson, a local gypsum quarry owner. It was a huge grand hall which was subsequently used in the war as a hospital and then became an orphanage before falling into disrepair.  By the time the Club bought the site it was is such a state it was demolished as a condition of the sale from the Local Authority. The pitches are on the site of the hall and gardens which make it a lovely setting. 

The next day we set off for Carlisle.  First stop was a bike shop for a chainring, no joy of course, so over the road to another, again no joy… We drove through the city and parked next to the castle before walking down the road for another attempt in a very large bike shop, none of the chainrings we needed in stock! This is crazy!  Ahh well, off for a walk through the city centre which was busy with shoppers and lots of people in tracksuits/leisure wear most of them with the trousers tucked into their socks!  We walked through the city centre to Carlisle castle, owned by English Heritage and very dog friendly, as the receptionist told us.  We

 went up into the gatehouse of the castle, the wardens accommodation, and as well as a grand hall and a garderobe we discovered a kitchen with a table, so we sat on the bench and set up our picnic while the other visitors wandered in around us!  We then went on to explore the rest of the 900 year old castle including the keep with its huge Great Hall and the dungeons, where prisoners were held in terrible conditions, so much so that one of the stones in the wall was licked smooth by the inmates using it to try and get condensation off the wall to drink.  We also went in the castles military museum, which has hundreds of exhibits over 300 years of military action, right up to modern day.  Back at the car we dropped the dogs off and went to the Tullie House art gallery, where we had tea and hot chocolate in the café! 

Walk day the next day. The 10.5 mile walk from the site was mainly on footpaths, as recommended to us by

Maggie, the site warden.  Just down the road from the site the road goes over a railway bridge, Phil waved at a freight train driver, luckily he waved back and made Phil’s day, saddo!  The path then followed the river Eden towards Wetheral, and after some very muddy sections we came to some National Trust woodlands which are home to Constantine’s Cells, a fascinating set of 3 caves which were carved out of the sandstone by Constantine, a younger son of a Scottish monarch. They were later used by Monks as a place of refuge, and a grain store. The caves even have an ornate doorway and window frames.  A little further on we could see the grounds of Corby Castle on the other side of the river, the most impressive feature was the cascades, an ornamental waterfall which comes down to join the river Eden from the castle gardens, passing through gargoyles mouths and down water staircases on the way. We walked through the small, wealthy looking village of Wetherall and on to the railway station where we joined the footpath which took us over Wetherall Viaduct, a railway bridge with 5 semi-circular arches which was built in 1834.  This took us into the village of Corby where we got a closer look at the castle which is privately owned by an Irish member of the House
of Lords, we also came across the lovely smelling Cumberland Brewery!  Back over at Wetherall, we stopped at a café and sat outside enjoying tea and cake before carrying on our round trip.  Just outside the village we came across Wetheral Priory Gatehouse, it is the only remaining structure of the priory, built in the middle ages and is now looked after by English Heritage.  We went inside and up the narrow, dark spiral staircase to emerge in a large hall, thought to be used as a residence by one of the Monks or by visitors to the Priory.  The remainder of the walk took us

through more muddy fields, including one with a load of nosey Llamas in it!  Smudge managed to loose her hand knitted snood on the way somewhere (spoiled, she is), but we carried on rather than going back to hunt for it. On through the village of Cotehill and back to the ‘van, after dunking the muddy Prince in a pool to clean him off! 

It was a wet day the next day. We eventually set out to Talkin Tarn Country Park, a small lake which has a

 well used path running around it, we set off on the short walk, meeting loads of people on the way.  Stopped at a bench and sat to have our lunch before carrying on round. Got annoyed by a man who insisted on stopping to take photos of everything, which meant we were finding it impossible to overtake him!  Eventually got past and back to the car.  We popped into the medieval market town of Brampton where we parked in the centre and had a walk around the town including purchases from the butchers and charity bookshop. 

Rain and wind in the night meant a disturbed sleep. We were up relatively early and had breakfast before setting off for Keswick at 10:00.  We met up with our friends Tracy and Ian in the car park at the Keswick pencil museum, they were here on holiday and luckily we timed it right to meet up. When we finally managed to prize Tracy away from the doors of the museum we went for a wander round the town.  First stop was the banks of Derwent water where Prince showed off his splashing and swimming talents.  Then back into town where we were easily seduced by a pub sign which said that they welcomed dogs, so in we went, people kept arriving with their pets and in the end I swear there were more dogs in there than people.  We ended up staying a while and enjoyed a couple of drinks and some lunch, while outside it hammered with rain.  When we left the rain had stopped, so we timed it perfectly, we had to move the car into the same car park as Tracy and Ian as our ticket had expired, so we left the dogs in the car where they were happy to have a lie down.  Back in the town Phil tried 2 more bike shops for chainrings, to no avail so we had an ice cream each for pudding before heading over to Tracy and Ian’s motorhome for a brew (the joys of having your accommodation with you).  By now it was time for us to say our goodbyes and head back to our ‘van

The next day we set out in Tonks for a walk in the Pennines.  We parked in the village of Croglin, a short distance from the site, where we sat in the car and had our lunch as it was raining!  The rain stopped, and we set off up the hill, hoping to go up to the peak at Blotting Raise.  Once we had covered about a mile up the

 track we reached a sign that said “No Dogs!” and we couldn’t go any further up the hill.  Disappointed, we went a bit further along another footpath before retracing our steps to Tonks. By now we are so used to the number of paths and access rights in Scotland, we forgot how restrictive the England footpath network is.  Back at the ‘van we didn’t go in, but instead set off on a walk around the grounds of the campsite, first to the former entrance to Englethwaite Hall, then into the woods where the owner of the hall had a gypsum mine.  We followed the course of the old railway line which took us to 2 large pools which are where the old quarries were, and Prince went in for a swim! After our tally for the day had reached 6 miles we went back to the ‘van for a brew, and Phil went out on his unicycle where he spent an hour learning how to get on the thing without having to hold on to a fence, getting a clap from the warden when he achieved it!  We later learned that Phil was the talk of the site, with everyone watching his antics from the comfort of their ‘vans!