Kentmere

The Kentmere Horseshoe

The Horseshoe is the reason to come. Clockwise from the church it climbs the Garburn road to Yoke, runs the switchback over Ill Bell and Froswick to Thornthwaite Crag and the Roman road on High Street, then swings back over Mardale Ill Bell, the Nan Bield Pass, Harter Fell, Kentmere Pike and Shipman Knotts to the valley. Eight Wainwrights, about 20 km and 1,100 m of ascent. The route page has it stage by stage, with the steepness profile and the places to bail: Kentmere Horseshoe.

The three things people ask:

• How hard is it? A long day rather than a technical one: no scrambling, but two steep pulls (onto Yoke and up from Nan Bield to Harter Fell) and a lot of ridge in the wind. The route page carries the site's difficulty rating and the reasoning.
• How long does it take? Most walkers take seven to nine hours. The route page gives the time band from the distance and ascent.
• How many Wainwrights? Eight, and the Birketts by the Kentmere Horseshoe variant adds the smaller tops.

Parking, honestly

There is a small area by the Kentmere Institute, the village hall, on a donation — about a dozen cars — and there is nothing else in the valley. The lane is single-track with passing places that are not parking, and the church is not a car park. On a fine Saturday the spaces are gone by early morning.

The alternatives are real ones: start from Staveley, where there is a car park and the 555 bus, and walk the four miles up the lane (or cycle it); or walk the western half of the Horseshoe from the Garburn Pass side, starting at Troutbeck. The car parks nearest the church are listed below with what they charge, and the parking map shows the whole area.

Getting there without a car

Without a car: The nearest stations as the crow flies are Staveley (6 km away) and Windermere (7 km away). The bus map has every stop we hold.

No bus enters Kentmere. The 555 between Kendal, Windermere and Keswick stops at Staveley, and Staveley has a railway station on the Windermere branch. From either it is four miles up the lane on foot, a pleasant hour and a quarter of river and woodland that adds to the day rather than spoiling it. The times are on the bus map and the fells by bus collection, from the operator's data.

The easier walks

• Kentmere Reservoir — the track from the road end runs up the valley to the reservoir at the foot of Ill Bell in about an hour, flat and clear the whole way. It is a reservoir, not a lake: no swimming, and the path does not circle it, so it is there and back.
• Kentmere Pike, Shipman Knotts and the eastern tops — the eastern half of the Horseshoe on its own: Kentmere Pike, Tarn Crag, Grey Crag and Shipman Knotts.
• The Garburn road — the old track over to Troutbeck, a long low pass with the Horseshoe's western ridge above it.

The village

Kentmere is a scattering of farms rather than a village with a centre. St Cuthbert's church stands at the road end with a yew in the churchyard; the Kentmere Institute beside it is the village hall. Kentmere Hall, a fourteenth-century pele tower, is a farm and is private. The valley has no shop, no pub and no café; Staveley has all three, and the Eagle and Child and the bakery there are the walkers' end of day.

Where to stay

A few beds, all small: camping pods and a bunkhouse at the valley's farms, and self-catering cottages let by the week. Each is a business named for the reader's convenience, not a recommendation; check its own site for room and price. Staveley and Windermere have the rest.