Eden Valley histories
Greystoke
A compact estate village with a medieval church and an inn on the green, between Penrith and Ullswater.
- Best for
- Village history and quiet woodland walks
- Give it
- Half a day, longer with Ullswater
- Don't miss
- St Andrew's collegiate church
Photo: Dave Kelly · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
Small village, unusually deep history
Greystoke rewards a measured visit built around the green, the church and the wooded landscape beyond.
The appeal lies in the village green, a Grade II* former collegiate church and a listed inn. Greystoke Castle adds guided tours and garden visits.
Where to go
Places in Greystoke
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Boot & Shoe Inn
A listed pub beside Greystoke's village green. Historic England dates the present building to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century; the pub serves cask ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the village green
- Access
- Homemade food is unavailable until further notice.
St Andrew's Church
A Grade II* parish church with thirteenth-century origins, extensive fifteenth-century work and a history as a college for priests.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- within Greystoke village
- Access
- Visitors are welcome, with free parking nearby in the village car park.
Ullswater Way
A 20-mile route around Ullswater that can be walked in shorter sections after travelling from Greystoke to the lake.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 150 minutes for a chosen section
- Locality
- at Ullswater
- Access
- Join a chosen section at a lakeside starting point.
Food & drink
1 placeVillage Shop on the Green
Greystoke's small shop on the green, providing a practical village stop alongside the inn.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 15 minutes
- Locality
- on the village green
Walks & outdoors
1 placeGreystoke Forest
A large plantation west of Greystoke, with forest roads and some broadleaf trees among the predominantly softwood planting.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- west of Greystoke
- Access
- The forest has permissive public access; choose a starting point for a walk along its forest roads.
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Three ways to explore Greystoke
Signature outings
A Practical Stop on the Green
Browse Greystoke Stores for groceries, local bread and fruit before heading on.
Church, College and Refuge
Inside St Andrew's, look for medieval glass, the priest's chamber and alabaster effigies of Greystoke lords.
The Woodland Beyond the Village
Explore forest roads west of Greystoke, among mainly softwood trees and some broadleaf planting.
The village story
Greystoke's Green, Church and Castle
An inn on the green, a former collegiate church and a castle shaped by centuries of rebuilding.
The Inn on the Green
The Boot & Shoe Inn faces Greystoke's green. The listed building dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Local tradition gives its name a more colourful origin: a Duke of Norfolk is said to have worn a boot on one foot and a shoe on the other to ease his gout.
Cask ales and rooms are available. Homemade food is unavailable until further notice.
The Green and the Estate
Greystoke Stores stands near the green, selling groceries, local bread and fruit and providing a Post Office.
Greystoke sits west of Penrith in gently rolling countryside, with Ullswater to the south.
Castle, Barony and Collegiate Church
Greystoke Castle occupies a medieval site with surviving work associated with a licence to crenellate in 1353. The building was partly rebuilt in the late seventeenth century, refronted in 1710 and extensively refaced in the nineteenth century. Those layers are more revealing than a single founding date. The castle offers guided tours and garden entry.
St Andrew's Church is Grade II* listed, with thirteenth-century origins and extensive fifteenth-century work, including the south aisle. It later served as a college for priests; inside are medieval glass, a priest's chamber and alabaster effigies of Greystoke lords.
A Name, a Legend and the Way Out
Greystoke's name has a literary echo in Lord Greystoke, the title borne by Tarzan in Edgar Rice Burroughs's stories. That fictional connection sits alongside the village's much older medieval history.
Greystoke Forest, west of the village, is a mainly softwood plantation with some broadleaf trees, forest roads and permissive public access. The 20-mile Ullswater Way circles the lake and can be walked in shorter sections from lakeside starting points. Bus 105 links Greystoke with Penrith.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
Third-party photographs are credited to their named creators and reused under the linked Creative Commons licence or public-domain dedication. Travel Fox stores an optimised local copy; the file-specific changes and any browser-applied display crop are disclosed below. Reused photographs link both to the Wikimedia Commons source record and to the declared source image; Travel Fox's own photographs carry no such record and are marked as ours. These image licences do not cover Travel Fox text, branding or page design.
- File:St Andrew's church, Greystoke - geograph.org.uk - 3220693.jpg — photograph by Dave Kelly; St Andrew's church, Greystoke by Dave Kelly. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Boot & Shoe Inn — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- St Andrew's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Village Shop on the Green — greystokevillage.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Greystoke Forest — eforms.eden.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Ullswater Way — lakedistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority