Sizergh Castle

We were planning to go to the National Trust at Townend only to find that it was closed today. Sizergh Castle seemed a good alternative so that’s where we went.

It rained for an hour or so which meant whiling away some time having a coffee and cheese scone, people watching and picking up snippets of conversation: “She must be a retired teacher out with her grandchildren”, “he was from Massachusetts”, “that grumpy girl doesn’t want to be here”

We enjoyed a guided tour of the gardens, having plants pointed out to us that we would not have noticed otherwise and learning a little about the people who lived in the castle.

We learned a whole lot more about the Strickland family tree in the house. Such a challenge to assimilate the big picture and recall how the names relate to one another, especially as the same few names crop up again and again in succeeding generations.

The Castle has been in the Strickland family for hundreds of years, often with the help of some judicial marriages. One fascinating surname was “Horneyold” which was hyphenated with Strickland in that order. I’ll leave you to put the two words together and see if you chuckle like I did.

After the house there was time to fit in a figure of eight walk around the estate ending high above the Lyth valley giving superb views away to the west. From sea level out over Morecambe Bay to Scarfell Pike, the highest point in England within a 100 degree view.

Fancying a pint we considered the Strickland Arms but ended up at the Swan at Lakeside sitting in glorious sunshine alongside the River Leven as it flows out of Windermere.

Today’s blip is of Sizergh Castle from across the Mirror Lake. That’s the classic view of the building and setting.