Howtown

The hotel that held its ground

The Howtown Hotel has no televisions, no en-suite bathrooms, and no particular intention of acquiring either. It opened in 1903 and has been run by the Baldry family ever since — four generations of them — and the decor is broadly the decor it started with. Lonely Planet called it "bewitchingly backwards," which the hotel would probably take as a compliment. It won a César Award for Best Hotel in the 1991 Good Hotel Guide. It resists modernisation as a matter of principle.

Residents get full board; visitors passing through can get a bar meal. The cooking is traditional home cooking, locally sourced, unpretentious to the point of being a statement. Wainwright stayed here, which in this part of the Lake District is close to a coat of arms.

Arrival by water, onward on foot

Getting to Howtown is half the point. It sits on the eastern shore of Ullswater, and the eastern shore has no through road — a minor lane runs the 3.5 miles in from Pooley Bridge and then stops, because south of here there is nowhere for it to go. Most people arrive by boat. The Ullswater Steamer has been crossing the lake for over 150 years, and the Lady of the Lake, still in service, was built in 1877. Howtown pier is the middle of its three stops, between Pooley Bridge and Glenridding. There is no railway and no regular bus. You come by water, or you come down the lane, or you walk.

Walking is the main business here. The Howtown-to-Glenridding shorepath is the classic Lake District day out: 6.5 miles along the lake through woods, bays and open fellside. Wainwright called it "the most beautiful of lake walks in the National Park." The done thing is to take the steamer out to Howtown and walk back, which lets the boat do the tedious part and leaves you the good part on foot.

Fells around an unfilled hamlet

If you want height rather than distance, Hallin Fell rises straight up behind the hamlet — 388 metres, a short pull for a summit that hands you the whole length of Ullswater. The 20-mile Ullswater Way passes through, and the Steel Knotts and Pikeawassa ridge runs along the top of Martindale above the village, if you fancy the harder line.

There are no shops. There is no church either; the nearest is St Martin's, the Grade II*-listed old church at Martindale, a short way off. Howtown is a hamlet in the older sense — a handful of buildings enclosed by the steep flanks of Hallin Fell and the Martindale ridge, with the lake in front and the fells behind, and not much else asked of it.

The luxury of fewer decisions

That absence of everything is the appeal. A place with one hotel, one pier and no road out is a place where the only decisions are which fell to climb and what time to catch the last steamer back. The Baldrys have run the same hotel through four generations without adding a television. You get the sense they know something the rest of us are still working out.