Fellpack Skiddaw

Hotel review

Does this place have the best hotel view in the Lake District? Certainly, it’s in with a good chance. On the lower slopes of Skiddaw, just north of Keswick, it looks across the plain between Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwentwater to a rippling skyline of fells including Cat Bells, Dale Head, Causey Pike and Grisedale Pike. On a very clear day, apparently 68 Wainwrights (fells over 300 metres) can be spotted.

This Victorian former gentleman’s residence was a classic country-house hotel for 40 years before the owning family retired in 2025 and it was taken over by a young team who already owned a guest house and two restaurants in Keswick. They’ve injected their trademark colourful, slightly retro style while respecting the original features – high ceilings, grand windows – of the original building. There’s a plum-coloured dining room, bottle-green lounge, and a pinky granite bar in the sleek, slightly ‘70s-style conservatory. Spaces flow into one another so the atmosphere is relaxed; there’s bar billiards in the small library and a turntable and selection of vinyls in the lounge. Guests also have free access to a nearby spa.

Food – if you can take your eyes off the views to read the menu – puts unexpected twists on classic dishes: a starter of vodka-cured salmon tartare, for instance, or a cauliflower cheese rarebit with apple mustard. Mains could include chimichurri beef rump with Bearnaise salsa or a properly fishy fish pie in a mushroom and leek sauce with a feather-light mashed potato topping.

Bedrooms are slowly losing their 1980s feature wallpapers and heavier furniture and are being replaced by deep-hued walls, clean-lined and funkier furnishings – perhaps a blush-pink sofa or mirror-top table – while bathrooms are sleek (around half, eventually, with big walk-in showers, the rest with a bath as extra). And all but two rooms have tantalising views.

There are plenty of walks, either direct from the hotel or within a 20-minute drive, then come back to tea – or cocktails – on the terrace.

Helen Pickles