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A hot tub at the lodge
A cedar tub on a deck under the trees, the day's last light on the water. The Spa Lodges keep this as their defining offering, and most evenings end here whether or not you mean them to.
Cumbria · Lake District
The Gilpin
A family-run country-house hotel near Windermere — small private-tub lodges, two distinctly drawn kitchens (one Michelin-starred), and a sister Lake House half a mile away with…
La note
An English country-house hotel with the patience to hide what it does best — small lodges with private cedar hot tubs, two distinctly drawn kitchens, and a sister property half a mile away that comes with its own tarn. The Lake District kept on a slow weekend's terms.
From the editors · Vedere House
Les particularités
- Style
- Country-house hotel a few miles inland from Windermere, run by the same family for nearly four decades
- Rooms
- A small register across the hotel and a sister Lake House nearby; most lodges and suites carry a private hot tub
- Tables
- Two — Source for the Michelin evening, Spice for the more casual one
- Spa
- The Spa Space — outdoor pool, cedar tubs, treatment lodges set back among the trees
- Lake House
- Eight rooms half a mile away, around a tarn of its own
- Best for
- A long weekend on the fells, with the walks built around the meals
- Season
- Year-round; the hot tubs read better in October than in July
The Gilpin sits a few miles inland from Lake Windermere, in a fold of Cumbria where the Lake District thins enough to be quieter than its name suggests. Run by the Cunliffe family for nearly four decades, the property has a particular habit: it hides what it offers in plain sight. The hotel and the cottages and the Lake House are scattered across the grounds; the most-asked-for rooms are barely signed.
What pulls the trip together is the spa lodges. Most have a private cedar hot tub on a deck that looks at trees and nothing else; the Lake House half a mile away has a tarn of its own, with chairs and candles set on a small wooden dock most evenings. The dining is two registers — Source, the Michelin-starred kitchen, and Spice, the more casual table, which is a rarer pairing in the English country than it ought to be.
The Lake District begins at the gate. Windermere is a short drive; the fells start the afternoon someone you trust has talked you into them. Most days the trip back ends in the same small wooden tub, with the same view of the same trees, and the day rearranges itself around that.
Moments choisis
02
Dinner at Source
The Michelin-starred kitchen at the Gilpin reads Cumbria the way the kitchen wants the county to be read — what was grown nearby, what was caught that morning, plated patiently. The room is small enough to know who is at the next table.
03
The other table — Spice
A second kitchen on the property, written in an Indian register and very rarely found in this corner of England. Both tables sit on the same evening; the choice belongs to the night, not the trip.
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