Now that Merry is 10, we’re trying to be conscious about how many ‘big walks’ we do in a row. As a spaniel, he would happily go as long as we’d let him! The day after our walk up Seat Sandal we had a ‘rest day’ – a few shorter activities designed to give us all a chance to recover. Turns out this was totally unnecessary as Merry wasn’t stiff at all and out walked all of us! Never mind, we still had a lovely day out…
A rest day that wasn’t really a rest day…
A few years ago we’d visited Sizergh Castle to walk around the gardens, and remember the trip so fondly that we decided to return. Unfortunately, the estate permits dogs only on the estate walks, not in the formal gardens. It seems odd in an area as dog friendly as the Lake District, especially as so many other National Trust sites allow dogs in all outside areas, but never mind. The route we followed was the 2.5 mile Sizergh Fell walk – spoiler, the National Trust have been very generous with their time estimates.
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Sizergh Fell walk
Starting from the National Trust car park, which has those key essentials (cafe and toilets), the Sizergh Fell route follows orange way markers. We thought these arrows were hard to find before realising we were following the walk backwards – whoops. They were easier to spot once we started looking on the back of gates!
Traversing gently rolling fields and woodland edges, the route is easy to follow and on good terrain all the way. The climb up to the ‘summit’ of Sizergh Fell is very short, and it doesn’t really feel like a true hill. You do however get good views across to the fells and down over Sizergh Castle.
Despite the National Trust’s estimate of 90 minutes minimum to complete the Sizergh Fell walk, this only took us just under an hour. Perhaps we are faster walkers than their usual visitors? We did overtake the few people we saw…
An unexpected encow-nter
All of the fields we crossed through had a sign on the gate advising that cattle are sometimes present. Specifically, long horn cattle. We’d made it nearly all the way around when Sam said: ‘Where are these cows then? I want to see some longhorns!’. To my horror, they miraculously appeared as we rounded the next corner. Right by the gate. It was definitely Sam’s fault.
My first instinct was to insist on turning around and retracing our steps back to the start. I’m doing better with my fear of cows, but a) they were right by the gate (on both sides of the path) and b) they had horns. The ends of which looked very pointy. And after all, we’d only been walking for forty minutes. That’s nothing in terms of a cow detour, right?
Sam did point out that they were all lying down and looked half asleep. As I inspected them (from the safety of behind the gate), one of them did what we call a ‘big stretch’, very similar to the dogs. Having gathered sufficient evidence that these were indeed very chilled out cows I decided to brave the crossing. Plus, there were some other people coming from the opposite direction, who I didn’t want to think I was a wuss. As you may have guessed, we survived.
From the cows’ field it really wasn’t far back to the car. Massive adrenaline rushes give me an appetite, so we set off in search of food, with the cafe full already at 10.30am. Long-time readers won’t find it surprising that we ended up in Booths. We just can’t resist their Cumberland Swirl butties!
Dog friendly rating: Sizergh Fell
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This rating encompasses the walk only and not the castle, which doesn’t allow dogs in the castle or gardens. The route is stile free and pretty quiet, and several of the fields were empty, meaning Coal got a run off the lead. NB: you may find sheep or cows in any fields, so always check it’s empty before letting your dog off. I’ve knocked off 1 point for the cow field, but the cows were very chilled.
Two extra stops
Not strictly part of this blog, I just wanted to recommend two other activities we squeezed into our day. The first was a visit to Shap Abbey (free to visit), a lovely quiet spot tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Secondly, we squeezed in a stop at Lowther Castle and Gardens. English Heritage members get discounted entry, so have your cards to hand. We were there a bit too early for the gardens I think, but it was still lovely to wander around.
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