I’ve visited a lot of National Trust properties during my adult life. In the 1980s & 1990’s it was as an actor/researcher with their young people’s theatre company, devising and staging immersive dramas. More recently I was a welcome host then garden volunteer at Cherryburn, the Tyne valley farm that was Thomas Bewick’s childhood home. But it’s as an ordinary member that I’d rate a day spent on the Sizergh Castle estate near Kendal in Westmorland as one of the most coherent and harmonious of visitor experiences.

This happy outcome was due to an ideal combination of activities. A fine walk with varied views, seasonal garden delights and characterful castle interiors, rounded off with sampling the scones offer in the café.

The Sizergh estate came to the National Trust in 1950 after centuries in the ownership of one family, the Stricklands, whose Anglo-Norman ancestors inherited it through marriage in 1239. The family still retain part of the house as their private home. The 1,600 acre (647 hectare) estate is commercially farmed by tenants while rangers develop and manage nature restoration and greater access projects in and around the agricultural framework.  

The well signposted Sizergh Fell trail provided lots of interest.  At the 400’ summit, overlooking Morecambe Bay to the south,  we came across remains of neolithic burial sites and traces of Romano-British settlements peeping through cropped turf and brambles at the edge of a huge swathe of tussocky anthills. Traditional British breeds of beef cattle are kept here, well adapted to this kind of upland grazing. Fittingly, the old English derivation of the name Strickland apparently means bullock pasture.

The track dips then rises to follow the limestone ridge, yielding fine views across the Lyth valley levels up into the mountainous heart of the Lake District. A brief ferocious hail storm cleared the grey clouds and let some sunshine in. Emerging from Brigsteer woods we  found ourselves at  Helsington Church, sheltered by its tree bordered burial ground now carpeted by daffodils and white starred wood anemones.

Inside the modest  light filled  interior the Georgian church’s distinctive decorative feature is wonderfully revealed…A whole wall depiction of supplicant female angels in a setting of Lakeland fells framing the altar below.

Dating from 1919, the painting commemorates those who gave their lives in the Great War.  Along with the altar paintings depicting flowers and other motifs, it was the work of a  female artist  who lodged at Sizergh Castle, Marion de Saumarez (1885-1978). Executed in oils on canvas the composition was stretched on battens and secured to the wall.

On our gradual descent back to the start we appreciated  the quality work put in by the rangers to make this circular trail so user friendly.

From  bespoke gate latches  to the  limestone dry stone walls strengthened by through ties of metal wire and wood block. This particularly thick wall also had extra stock proofing on the field side in the form of blackthorn hedging, which was just now coming into flower.

Down at Holeslack farm (now holiday accommodation) new laid hedges framed a damson orchard. In the old barn were bundles of hazel rods harvested from the neighbouring wood, no doubt to be used in hedge laying and other tasks about public parts of the estate.

The building is also playing host to a temporary exhibition celebrating the often undervalued and overlooked role of women in upland hill farming in the 21^st century. Illustrated by great images of said women at work on their farms, their number including profiled chroniclers of rural life like Andrea Meanwell (Tebay) and Helen Rebanks (Matterdale).

A walk through Holeslack woods revealed the wide paths and smooth surface to allow buggies and wheelchairs easy access. Dogs Mercury in abundance and other woodland carpeting plants now in leaf. A branching path led us to a platform overlooking a wildlife pond on the woodland’s lowest edge, framed by arches of live willow wands. A nice touch.

The gardens at Sizergh are a delight. Conversations with one of the gardeners about the narcissi as we strolled through gave extra pleasure to the discoveries.

The wide borders, cordons of pears against orchard walls, herb beds framed and sheltered by reflective slate; an extensive sunken limestone rockery with pools, shrubs, trees and alpines giving way to large formal ponds, steps and terraces that frame the castle’s impressive south elevation.

The castle core is the most impressive architectural feature to my eyes.. That’s the oldest section, the 60’ high C14^th Pele or Solar tower. It also has the original spiral staircase which the little boy  inside me was quietly thrilled to descend at the end of our visit.

Inside the great square tower and its elegant Jacobean extension the takeaway impression is of dark oak floors and wall panels punctuated by huge sculpted fire surrounds within massively thick walls, enlightened and enriched by fine furniture and hangings. There are also generations of family portraits, alongside those of the Stuart monarchs many of them served. So close an association in fact that Thomas Strickland was forced into exile in France alongside fellow catholic James II after the Glorious revolution of 1688, never to return. His successors were fortunate to retrieve the family seat after protracted legal action.

In the 1890’s another dip in fortunes saw the selling off of the inlaid wainscoting that gave the Elizabethan bedroom at the top of great tower its name. A very rare survivor in a country house of oak panelling inlaid with pale poplar in floral and geometric patterns. London’s V&A museum had bought the panels from the family and displayed them throughout the 20^th century. The story gets a happy ending when the NT and the V&A struck a deal, facilitating their refit in aitu in the 21^st century.  We’d like to return too, to experience the garden in another season and explore those parts of the wider estate we’d not had time to discover this time around.

Footnote: returning home next day the weather turned  truly elemental in a way that only Cumbrian weather can. We spent a happy morning out of the biblical deluge, enchanted by the Windermere Jetty Museum in its impressive architect designed home on the lake at Bowness. It houses an extraordinary collection of craft associated with Lakeland waters and also offers – weather permitting – trips aboard steam powered vessels on Windermere.

What really made our day though was when we eventually got to Castlerigg. Situated on a shoulder of hillside, between Keswick and the town’s neighbouring mountains this impressive stone circle is estimated to be some 3,000 years old.

Rediscovered by romantic era influencers of the early C19th like Wordsworth and Burns this mysterious round of huge stones then stood marooned within a ploughed field. The most likely reason the circle’s single stone outlier was moved and repositioned in a corner of the field was to ease passage for the plough and team. The ghosted form of rigg and furrow (ridge & furrow) is still evident  in the flattened corrugated ground. A challenge to stay upright when fiercely buffeted by fierce wind and rain but the effect was extra spectacular and – more selfishly – the weather helped keep this spell binding picture free of fellow humans for a while!