The Cranleigh Hotel

Kendal Road, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 3EW
Telephone: 01539 443293
English Tourism Council 2 Stars
AA 2 Stars
   E-mail Establishment

0ur hotel is in Bowness-on-Windermere, one of the Lake District's three main centres. We are quietly situated off the main road, but only two minutes walk from Lake Windermere and the bustle of Bowness village - one of the few hotels to be so conveniently placed at the centre of activity in the Lake District - "the most beautiful corner of England"

The Cranleigh’s fifteen bedrooms are clean, comfortable, well equipped: private bathrooms, central heating, colour T.V.s, tea trays. Radios, hairdryers, iron/ironing board are available, and if there is anything else you need we'll get it for you if we can - it's our job to look after you!

The hotel's laundry facilities are there for guests' use for a small charge and we have a drying room for outdoor clothes and boots should you take to the fells and get wet; not likely in our notoriously balmy climate, of course!

After a good night's sleep it's down to breakfast - unless your idea of a holiday does not include jumping out of bed for breakfast. Fear not, at the Cranleigh we will happily bring an ample continental breakfast to your room, whenever.

Those for whom holiday equals the Great British Breakfast should make their way to the dining room between 8.30 - 9.30, to enjoy the Cranleigh Cumbrian.

Start with fruit juice, cereal, yogurt, fruit, move into sausage, bacon, egg, tomato, mushrooms, fried bread - well you're on holiday - and finish with tea and toast.

After that, if a rest with the papers is needed before you set off to row Lake Windermere (10 miles, England's longest) or to canter up Scafell Pike (3210 feet, England's highest), our two comfortable lounges are there for your use at anytime (log fires included though not in summer we hope). The non-smokers' lounge has a colour TV and a pedal organ!

The reception lounge does not. But it does have a bar which makes it a popular pre-dinner meeting place!

We serve dinner between 7.00 and 9.00 p.m. Children's meals are available as are special meals given a little notice. We stock a small range of wines at sensible prices.

In addition we have a garden and, of course, private parking for guests.

Where are we?

In Bowness (not Windermere village which is 1 1/2 miles up the main road away from the Lake), only 2 minutes walk from Lake Windermere.

So what can we do in the Lake District?

You do not have to be a mountaineer to enjoy it though. Sure, the views from Coniston Old Man are worth the scramble but a stroll round Windermere lake shore with the Fairfield Horseshoe as a backdrop cannot be beaten, and a lake cruise offers effortless sightseeing; you could hire a sailing boat or water ski of course!

As nowhere is much more than an hour by road from Bowness, from the border city of Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall to the "auld grey town" of Kendal, the stately homes and gardens, the museums, the pubs, but always the magnificent scenery of England's "Little Switzerland" are accessible. Twitchers chase eagles at Haweswater and bitterns at Leighton Moss. Literary gentlefolk peruse Wordsworth, Ruskin, perhaps Potter. Steam buffs ride l’al Ratty and the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, there is even a long and sandy coastline.

There is something for everyone: walkers, gawpers, climbers, sailors, thinkers, drinkers, shoppers and poets!

And to come down to earth, a bonus for Cranleigh guests is free membership of Parklands Country Club where they may use the pool, sauna, squash, snooker etc., which is only two minutes walk from hotel.

Why not visit the Cranleigh home page?