Lingholm Kitchen & Walled Garden

Lingholm Kitchen & Walled Garden is a great place to stop for lunch if you’re in the Lake District.

Part of the Lingholm Estate (which has some very swish self-catering properties if you’re looking for accommodation), the walled garden is where Beatrix Potter took her inspiration for Mr McGregor’s garden where Peter so nearly met his doom. She spent many summers at Lingholm (which was designed by Alfred Waterhouse like Manchester Town Hall) and the layout today is just like in the illustrations with cabbage patches, bean poles and the like.

Lingholm Kitchen has a fantastic outdoor terrace and great views from inside too. Look through the glass wall over to Skiddaw or down to the octagonal walled garden below.

You can book for afternoon tea but at breakfast and lunch it’s a free-for-all and it can get busy on sunny summer weekends.

The kitchen serves local produce and the breads and cakes are all made in the adjoining Lingholm Bakery. Menus change regularly but typical lunch dishes include miso mushroom reuben sandwich with pickled red cabbage, tiger prawn kedgeree or gnocchi with heritage carrot puree and dukkah. The food is more adventurous than you’d expect from somewhere in a National Trust-y kind of place.

Don’t miss the alpacas on your walk up to the cafe.