Travel & Tourism

The beautiful Lake District boutique hotel that’s been named one of the UK’s best

That spa is stunning.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 2nd December 2023

A beautiful boutique hotel in the Lake District has just been named one of the top three in the UK – and it’s easy to see why.

Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, near Windermere, is one of only two properties in the north of the country to make the top 10 in the prestigious list.

The stunning hotel and spa has just 39 rooms, including its staggering spa suites, which are build on top of a natural pond with their own stone-built hot tubs on the decking.

It’s also home to two renowned restaurants – Michelin-star SOURCE, which has Ollie Bridgwater as executive chef, and Gilpin Spice.

And now the Gilpin Hotel & Lake House has landed itself in third place in the Top 50 Boutique Hotels. Quite the accolade.

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It’s climbed nine places since last year, and was beaten only by The Newt in Somerset and Lime Wood in Lyndhurst.

The team at the Gilpin says its new ranking in the list is down its ongoing renovations and improvements, which have included a new Spa Space at Gilpin Hotel, a Vertical Farm, more Spa Suites and the appointment of two new chefs.

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Hot Tub At the Lake House. Credit: Denise Creely
Hot Tub At the Lake House. Credit: Denise Creely
The Gilpin Lake House.
The Gilpin Lake House. Credit: Ben Barden Photography Ltd. 2009

The hotel is operated by Barney and Zoë Cunliffe, who worked alongside Barney’s parents John and Christine until their deaths in 2020 and 2022 respectively.

The Top 50 Boutique Hotels is curated by and voted on by leading industry experts, hoteliers, travel writers and influencers.

Barney and Zoë said: “We are so very proud to be in this year’s list, and chuffed to bits to be so highly placed.

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“We’ve worked together as a family and team for 35 years to create Gilpin, and it has always been our aim to create a luxurious sanctuary – one that is filled with love and laughter, without any pretentiousness.

“We want our guests to feel at home here, to feel loved, and we hope that that is what our guests feel.

“It’s with great sadness that we can’t celebrate this award with Mum and Dad, but we know that they would be absolutely delighted. As always, we would like to say a massive thank you to Team Gilpin, who all work so hard and with incredible passion. Thank you.”

SOURCE restaurant at the Gilpin Hotel.
SOURCE restaurant at the Gilpin Hotel. Credit: Supplied

Gilpin Hotel & Lake House executive chef Ollie said: “Being named in a list like this gives credence to everything we have been trying to achieve at SOURCE at Gilpin Hotel over the past year, with the restaurant offering an extra dimension to the wider Gilpin experience.

“People come to Gilpin to get away from everything and when they visit SOURCE they’re looking for a sense of occasion as well as the food and wine, so we hope to live up to that ideal.”

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Also featuring on the Top 50 Boutique Hotels list in the north west were Another Place in Ullswater, Moor Hall in Lancashire, Hotel Gotham in Manchester, Rothay Manor in Ambleside, and The Samling Hotel in the Lake District.

The full list from 1 to 50, including special awards for food and drink and best service is available to view here.

You can find out more about Gilpin Hotel & Lake House and book a room here.

The Top 50 Boutique Hotels 2023 list in full

  • The Newt, Somerset
  • Lime Wood, Lyndhurst
  • Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, Windermere
  • Heckfield Place, Hook
  • Padstow Townhouse, Padstow
  • The Pig at Bridge Place, Kent
  • Lympstone Manor, Exmouth
  • Grantley Hall, Ripon
  • Beaverbrook, Leatherhead
  • Hambleton Hall, Oakham
  • Dormy House Hotel, Broadway
  • Hampton Manor, Hampton In Arden
  • Grove of Narberth, Narberth
  • The Idle Rocks, St Mawes
  • Another Place, Ullswater
  • Boys Hall, Ashford
  • Artist Residence Bristol, Bristol
  • The Mandrake, London
  • The Fife Arms, Braemer
  • Foyers Lodge, Scotland
  • Great Fosters, Egham
  • Middleton Lodge, Ripon
  • Moor Hall Restaurant with Rooms, Lancashire
  • The Zetter Marylebone, London
  • Yorebridge House, YorK
  • The Gallivant, Rye
  • The Wild Rabbit, Kingham
  • Estelle Manor, North Leigh
  • Hotel Gotham, Manchester
  • Links House at Royal Dornoch, Dornoch
  • Palé Hall, Bala, Wales
  • Scarlet Hotel, Cornwall
  • Hotel Tresanton, Tresanton
  • Henrietta Hotel, London
  • Lochgreen House Hotel & Spa, Troon
  • The Harper, Holt
  • The Pig on the Beach, Swanage
  • Rothay Manor, Ambleside
  • Number One Bruton, Somerset
  • Nomad, London
  • The Mitre, Hampton Court
  • The Samling Hotel, Lake District
  • House of Gods, Edinburgh
  • The Retreat at Elcot Park, Newbury
  • Farlam Hall Hotel & Restaurant, Brampton
  • Glebe House, Devon
  • Le Manoir aux Quat’saisons, Oxford
  • At the Chapel, Bruton
  • Henry’s Townhouse, Marylebone, London
  • Titchwell Manor, Brancaster

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Travel & Tourism

Manchester Museum has been shortlisted for the 2024 Art Fund Museum of the Year

Danny Jones Danny Jones Manchester Museum shortlisted for Museum of the Year 2024

Another bit of very well-deserved recognition for our city as the Manchester Museum has been shortlisted for the 2024 Art Fund Museum of the Year.

Organised by the independent and membership-based British charity, which raises funds through the collection of important works and artefacts, it’s world the single largest museum prize in the world.

Shining as one of the crown jewels in Manchester’s cultural scene, the museum has been named among five other impressive finalists for this year’s award, which is evaluating inspiring projects from autumn 2022 through to winter 2023.

This wonderful news comes at a good time for Manchester Museum, which recently welcomed its one-millionth visitor since reopening to the public in February last year, following a £15 million values-led redevelopment. It really is back with a bang.

With Art Fund keeping audiences and communities at their heart, the highly revered accolade has a particular focus on community engagement, sustainable ways of working, and demonstration of ambition by reinventing what it means to be ‘the best’ museum for the audiences of today and tomorrow.

For context, the Manchester Museum (which sits as part of the University of Manchester) was the most visited indoor museum in the North of England throughout 2023, despite being shut for an entire month, welcoming a total of 790,332 people through their doors.

Speaking on this year’s selection, director Jenny Waldman, who heads up the 2024 judging panel, has applauded each of this year’s finalists for delivering “something for everyone” and keeping “community at the very heart of their programming.”

“Their commitment to innovative partnerships whilst operating within an extremely challenging funding environment is incredible”, she added. “I’m so pleased to see the way they support and centre young people through their work.

“Across a wide range of size and scale, these organisations are all real leaders in their field. I urge everyone to go and visit these extremely special spaces.” So do we.

name of the t-rex manchester museum
We’d recommend going along to Stand the T-Rex alone
manchester museum up for art fund annual award
You’ve got to see the giant Japanese spider crab
(Credit: Manchester Museum/Matthew via Flickr)

As for the museum themselves, Director Esme Ward said of the announcement: “Manchester Museum’s redevelopment was the result of 10 years’ collective endeavour, so being shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year is a moment of joy for everyone to share in, from staff and partners to our communities and Manchester itself.

“It is an affirmation of museums’ power to bring people together in building a more inclusive, hopeful future.”

Built on self-proclaimed values of “inclusion, imagination and care”, the museum’s recent reopening has positioned it at the forefront of the sector here in the UK, with new galleries, partnerships, visitor facilities, sector-leading programming and digital innovations.

These updates, along with their existing and award-winning South Asia Gallery – the largest and first permanent gallery in the UK to celebrate the experiences and contribution of the South Asian diaspora co-curated by members from the community itself – are what have helped put it in the running for this prestigious prize.

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Visitor numbers for the first year following reopening were up 157% on 2019/20, with 57% of those being new attendees and more than one in seven’s first trip to a museum ever.

The other four shortlisted museums are the Craven Museum in Skipton, North Yorkshire; Dundee Contemporary Arts, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Young V&A – Victoria and Albert Museum, also in the capital.

The winning museum will be announced at a ceremony at the National Gallery in London on 10 July and will receive £120,000 to put towards internal projects and cultural work. Better still, £15,000 will be given to each of the four other finalists, so everyone’s a winner in a way.

Congratulations again to everyone at Manchester Museum and well done for all your incredible hard work – we can’t wait to be right about you again in a couple of months when we’re confident you’ll be rightly named as the winner of the 2024 Art Fund Museum of the Year.

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — Supplied/Matthew (via Flickr)

Travel & Tourism

Olicana Park – The log cabins near Manchester that capture apres-ski magic all year round

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson

Roaring fires, bubbling hot tubs, stunning views, and even pairs of skis strapped to the walls – but this isn’t the French alps… it’s Yorkshire. 

Olicana Park is a beautiful holiday park right on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, just an hour’s drive from Greater Manchester.

Here, scattered around the banks of the River Wharfe, you’ll find a collection of luxury wooden cabins, traditional cottages, and classic static caravans.

But for us, it really is all about those cabins, which capture all the best bits of the apres-ski culture loved by snow-worshippers, all year round.

In winter, you can whack on your own log burger and cosy up on the sofas with a glass of red wine and a good book, while in summer you can throw open the bi-fold doors and sit out with a cocktail on your own gigantic roof terrace.

Each cabin has its own theme that plays in around the tasteful decor, which usually involves incredible wooden beams and stone floors.

The one our friends at The Hoot stayed in had an apres-ski theme, from the subtle (vintage wooden skis and piste markers used as wall art) to the clever (an old chair lift that had been turned into patio furniture).

The luxury apres-ski cabin at Olicana Park
The luxury apres-ski cabin at Olicana Park
A sauna inside the cabin
A sauna inside the cabin
The view from your own terrace
The view from your own terrace

There’s a huge hot tub perched on your own private decking too, where you can soak in the warm water while watching the river burble past at the end of your own driveway.

Upstairs in this particular cabin were two enormous double bedrooms with modern en suite bathrooms, one of which also had an enormous terrace attached with a view down to the river.

And then – wait for it – the cabin also came with its own sauna. Talk about luxury.

If you can’t tear yourself away from your own space, each cabin has a kitchen that’s perfectly kitted out with everything you need to whip up a tasty tea (or, if you’re like us, a cheese board for dinner).

Lunch dishes at Hamilton's the on-site restaurant at Olicana Park
Lunch dishes at Hamilton’s the on-site restaurant at Olicana Park
Breakfast at Hamilton's the on-site restaurant at Olicana Park
Breakfast at Hamilton’s the on-site restaurant at Olicana Park

But if you do venture out, there’s an on-site restaurant called Hamilton’s, where you can dig in to fresh salads, gyros, and burgers, and when you come back in the next morning you can feast on a menu of banging breakfasts and brunches.

Olicana Park actually used to be a traditional caravan park, but has been given some serious TLC since the new owners took over in 2016.

It was this team who decided to split the park into zones, with four cottages in one, five luxury cabins in another, and 29 static caravans in the third.

The cottages and cabins were all refurbished or constructed from scratch using British suppliers and local tradesmen.

The living rooms in an Olicana Park cabin. Credit: The Hoot Leeds
The living rooms in an Olicana Park cabin. Credit: The Hoot Leeds

It’s just a short stroll from Addingham village, and that’s only a short bus from the bustling town of Ilkley, which itself is only a short train ride from Leeds.

That means excellent pubs, restaurants and cafes within easy reach, as well as gorgeous countryside walks like a riverside amble to Bolton Abbey.

Surrounded by a plethora of long walks and country pubs, Olicana Park really is a perfect gateway to the Yorkshire Dales, and if you’re looking for something to kick off holiday season then we couldn’t recommend it more.

You can get 10% off your June holiday at Olicana Park with the code “THEHOOT”.

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Featured image: The Hoot Leeds

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