Gilpin Hotel and Lake House

This luxurious country house hotel (Relais & Châteaux) offers ‘indulgent’ rooms, Michelin-starred dining, spacious grounds, legions of staff, and ‘comfort in all the right places’. The Cunliffe family, who have owned it since 1988, ‘keep making it better every year’, say fans. In 2020 this means new, extravagantly large spa lodges: bold glass-and-wood affairs with circular bath, private garden and spa. These are in addition to smaller spa lodges overlooking a pond and Scandi-style garden suites, and contemporary rooms in the Edwardian house. Six Lake House rooms, in a former fishing lodge on a 100-acre estate half a mile away, have exclusive access to a 20-metre pool and spa. Dining is a choice between Michelin-starred HRiSHi, which offers Modern British cuisine with an Asian twist, such as Cartmel Valley wild duck with spiced pumpkin chutney, and the ‘funky’ Gilpin Spice with its pan-Asian small and large plates, and more modest prices. Come here to relax in the gardens, the ‘swanky’ bar, the ‘wonderfully restful’ sitting room, or around Lake House’s private woodland and lake. (ST). This hotel is a member of Pride of Britain hotels.