Lowther Park
Walk date – 21st January 2026
Distance – 5 miles
Weather – sunny spells initially, followed by heavy cloud and then rain, slight breeze occasionally
Another ‘weather window’ forecast turned up. As has happened previously, it was for occasional sunny spells during the morning but followed by rain and strong winds from noon onwards. The sunny spells would only last for a couple of hours, which wasn’t a great deal of time to do much with, so we decided on a walk from Lowther Castle as far as Whale and then do the return leg via the riverside path. The frozen ground has given way to muddy paths at valley level but at higher levels there is still some ice and snow around, according to the fell top assessors report from Helvellyn today. Although the forecast included stronger winds at height, at valley level we weren’t too troubled by the occasional light breeze, although it was a bit nippy during a cloudy spell. We weren’t too troubled by rain either which only began falling just as we reached Askham village at the end of the walk, and which continued to pour down for the rest of the afternoon.
Route
Lowther Castle – path to Whale hamlet – riverside path to Crookwath Bridge – road walk back to Askham – Askham Bridge – steep path back up to Lowther Castle
Lowther Castle has plenty of parking spaces so we had no problem finding an empty bay. As we walked down from the car park the castle eventually came into view. Carrying on along the curved driveway would eventually lead into a courtyard where the cafe is situated. We didn’t have time for coffee and cake today so at this point we turned off to the right and headed down to a gate leading to the paths beyond the walls of the castle.
The main entrance gate to the castle although its not a castle in the accepted sense and is more of a grand country house. The present day building is not the original, which at the time was known as Lowther Hall, completed in 1685 but destroyed by fire in 1718.
Looking through the imposing entrance to the main and roofless building beyond. This building replaced the one damaged by the fire and was completed around 1814. The house was closed in 1935 by the 5th Earl of Lonsdale, the contents were sold in 1947 and the roof removed in 1957. The castle, with only its facade and outer walls remaining, and its extensive grounds were neglected for many years but eventually underwent significant improvements and were opened to the public in 2011. The development of the gardens continues. The Deer Park hosts the four day annual Kendal Calling music festival, originally held in Kendal but relocated to the Lowther Deer Park in 2009 to increase capacity.
As we rounded the bend in the path we kept meeting groups of young Longhorn cattle. This group stood still, not knowing what to do, we stood still, to avoid startling them, while waiting for them to walk past us. After waiting a couple of minutes, with nothing happening, we just moved ourselves off the path and then they felt safe enough to walk past us. We aren’t that frightening, are we?
The view down to the river Lowther from the high level path.
Trees after a gale, looks like the gale emerged the winner!
A look back as we emerged from the forest onto the open path. Looks like the ‘little gentleman in the brown velvet waistcoat’ has been busy judging by the number of molehills in the shot.
The first sunny spell happened as we walked along the path.
A gate without a fence, just like the stile without a fence on our last walk on 14th January this year. There’s plenty of similar non-existent fence crossings to be found in and around the Lake District fells.
Looking across the river towards Helton village with Loadpot Hill over on the left skyline. The cloud looked rather heavy across there.
Loadpot Hill again on the right and the fells around Mardale on the left.
In the distance, just above the river, is the Crookwath Bridge which the path shown on the left of the photo leads over to.
The path to the bridge is now on the right but we take the puddly one on the left which will lead us over to the little hamlet of Whale. We have an interesting sky at the moment where a couple of layers of cloud seem to be heading in different directions …..
….. and by the time Whale farm came into view the lower layer was overhead. There are two paths going off to the right, so walkers don’t have to go through the farmyard, we took the one in the shot but there is one a little further up the main path which does the same job. At the end of the main path we could see the top section of a car so we thought that it belonged to a new tenant …..
….. but having peeped into one of the yards and then walked by the farmhouse we could see that the whole place was still without any occupants which must mean that the vehicle we noticed as we were approaching must have belonged to someone else …..
….. empty barns …..
….. more empty barns …..
….. more emptiness as we climbed over the stile at the end of the path …..
….. after we had clambered over the stile I followed the road around to the farm entrance and found the front of the empty barns. All the barns had been cleared of animals and farming equipment.
There were more empty outbuildings just below the barns and the silence was total with none of the usual farm sounds which we are accustomed to hearing when we’re in the vicinity of one. A farm without sounds is a depressing place so I didn’t linger.
Back on the lane in the hamlet of Whale so I took a couple of shots of some of the residences there …..
….. I even managed to include the tail lights of a vehicle parked outside one of the houses, again!
An old style ‘hole in the wall’ type of postbox dating back to either George V or George Vl and probably the former rather than the latter as George V’s predecessor was Edward Vll so a change of lettering would have been necessary, which wasn’t the case when George V was succeeded by George Vl. I wonder if the postmen/women who empty the box ever think about the age of the key they use to open it.
We walked down the lane from Whale, crossed the road and took to the path alongside Whale beck. It was very full and …..
….. in a few places was overflowing its banks.
The path beside Whale beck curved around and brought us to this bridge across the Lowther river. There were a couple of blocks of mounting steps at either end of the bridge which had been placed there for horse riders to dismount and then remount at either end of it after leading their horses across the bridge on foot. Naturally J was interested in them.
A view of the Lowther river upstream from the bridge crossing.
Possibly another tributary entering the river at the far end of the bridge, it might also be water which has overflowed from the river, I don’t know what it is as it isn’t named on the map.
On the other side of the bridge now where we had to pass through this gate with its warning notices about Water Buffalo and Longhorn Cattle being on the loose. As can be seen there isn’t even a sheep in the field never mind any water buffalo!
Having been suitably warned to be on the lookout for water buffalo etc I took this shot looking back at the bridge once we were through the gate. If I had been riding a horse and needed to cross the bridge I would have had my feet firmly on the ground at this point and would have been leading the horse across by the reins. Riding a horse across the bridge and trusting to luck that it wouldn’t throw a ‘wobbly’, possibly tipping its rider over the rails and into the water wouldn’t be my cup of tea at all. (J knows all about being ‘tipped out of the side door’ as he calls it.) I’m not good with some bridges anyway even when I’m on two feet never mind four!
Following the path from the bridge across the field with a look across to Loadpot Hill (L) and Arthur’s Pike (R). Those clouds looked even more threatening …..
….. but there seemed to be a brighter patch over the fells around Mardale.
On the left is a small footbridge over a small beck feeding into the river which we crossed and took to the path on the other side. As we approached the footbridge we noticed a solo walker who appeared to be heading for the main bridge after coming down from the Helton direction. We were too far apart from each other to have a chat with him though. We hadn’t gone very far along the path when we noticed him coming back towards us along the same path as us. We stopped to let him get by, receiving a grunt by way of greeting/acknowledgement, and then waited until he was a good distance ahead before we started out again. We were to see him three more times before the end of our walk.
Another sunny spell came along which made the walk back to Askham much brighter and a lot more pleasant, it was almost like walking during a bright early spring day.
We passed below the solo walker here as he had stopped to make use of a wooden picnic table (the sort with benches attached) while he had a drink and pored over a map …..
….. we carried on along the riverside path and enjoyed the sunshine …..
….. and eventually Crookwath Bridge came into view.
I was just about to take a shot of this little footbridge over what seems to be called Keldron Spring when I noticed the solo walker coming along the path towards it. I waited until he had crossed over before taking the shot. He passed J, who was waiting for me, then went through the gate at the end of the path and out on to the road. He turned right and crossed …..
….. Crookwath Bridge and had disappeared by the time I took this shot of the gathering and darkening clouds ……
….. although they hadn’t reached us yet and we still had some sunshine …..
….. so I crossed the bridge for the downstream view of the Lowther river, a zoom in will reveal the buildings of Whale farm to the right of the tree plantation.
Back on the tarmac lane from the bridge now and walking back to Askham where …..
….. a little further along we came to this old watering trough by the roadside. I wonder how often it gets used nowadays.
Its now looking very gloomy in the Mardale direction.
We had just reached Askham village when, at twelve noon precisely, the first few drops of rain began to land on us …..
….. I turned around for a look back and realised that the rain wasn’t going to stop any time soon. The skyline had almost vanished into the gloom and above us was a very familiar dark grey blanket of rain cloud. The camera got tucked away inside my jacket and only came out again …..
….. as we passed the Punchbowl Inn at Askham. Just as well we didn’t go in for a coffee and the chance to dry out as neither of us had brought any cash with us, nor would we have caught another glimpse of the solo walker coming up the street from the bridge at the bottom. J asked me if I’d recognised him, but I hadn’t even noticed him as I was holding up my jacket hood against the rain. I did recognise him however when I looked up and saw him walking up the street. I did wonder if he’d been walking a variation of the ‘Askham Loop’ walk and had made Askham his final destination.
After crossing the bridge below St Peter’s Church at the bottom of the village we turned up the steep path through the trees and eventually back into the grounds of Lowther Castle.
We’ve just passed through the gate and back onto the path we left at the beginning of the walk. The main gate I took a shot of to begin with is now visible between the two “gatehouses’ or ‘pavilions’ or whatever they are supposed to be called and the castle itself is enclosed by these walled structures. A couple of walkers can just be seen, beyond the single gate, on the same path that we used to begin with.
A final shot of the castle from the driveway back up to the parking area. With that the camera is hidden away again inside my jacket and we scuttle off up the hill to get in the car and out of the rain. We didn’t look in but I don’t suppose many folk were sitting outside the courtyard cafe. However, it does have indoor seating as well and, as it serves hot meals from 12 noon onwards, quite a number of folk seemed to be heading towards it. It hadn’t stopped raining by the time we got home just before 1 pm and continued to rain all afternoon, possibly all night too but I lost interest when it became too dark to see anything. It has rained on and off, mostly on, today (Thursday) too. Ah well, it is January after all.