Short Breaks

This is not solely a historic garden. It is a place of experimentation

Brantwood’s Sally Beamish has not only restored a historic garden – she has furthered Ruskin’s sustainable dream. Sally Beamish has overseen quite a few changes during her time as head gardener of the Brantwood Estate,…

This is what Cockermouth does best: local food, local brews, excellent views

Hungry? Try our gastronomic tour of Lake District town, Cockermouth. Cockermouth, recently rated by the Guardian as the “perfect town”, isn’t just about Wordsworth, fells, lakes and coast. No, this Georgian gem of a town…

The unheard music of these waters and their sources is distilled into a work of art

As part of the Cockermouth Weekender, the town showcases a very watery work of art. More than almost any other place in Britain, Cumbria is a land defined by water. Its hills and crags were…

You begin to wonder what's real and what's not.

Don’t expect any easy answers in this old masters-inspired exhibition at Abbot Hall. Uwe Wittwer is an intriguing sort of an artist. He appropriates old masters – think Gainsborough and Hogarth – fuses them with…

Wordsworth betrayed his radicalism by fretting about the Lakes being despoiled by towny ‘oiks’.

The BBC Radio DJ and writer waxes lyrical about the Lake District – but is none too keen on Wordsworth. Art in Cumbria gets personal this spring as, on the weekend of 8 to 10…

A weekend that is sociable, cultural and pretty much unlike any other in Cumbria

Food, sound art, secret rambles and Stuart Maconie – just another weekend in Cockermouth then. Things are looking up for Cockermouth, the Cumbrian town that was (in)famously inundated by flood waters in 2009. As The…

A small but perfectly formed homage to celluloid set in one of the Lakes' loveliest towns

Cumbria’s premiere film festival returns this spring. Think of a film festival and the images that spring to mind might be of glittering Cannes, the indie charms of Sundance or, closer to home, Edinburgh. You’d be…

One of Britain's most important post-war artworks can be found in a field in the Lakes

A monument to a forgotten man – and one of Europe’s key lost works of Modernism On the site of a former gunpowder works, nestled amongst the woods and just a short distance from the…