At the end of the road
Kentmere
A remote Lake District valley with no through road, ringed by a classic fell circuit and crossed by the River Kent.
- Best for
- Ridge walks and remote valley days
- Give it
- A full day for the 12-mile Horseshoe
- Don't miss
- St Cuthbert's and the Bernard Gilpin memorial
The Fox verdict
A valley made for deliberate journeys
Kentmere rewards visitors who come for its ridge, reservoir and deep sense of remoteness.
Choose between the 12-mile Kentmere Horseshoe over Yoke, Ill Bell, Harter Fell and Kentmere Pike, or the gentler 6.5-mile reservoir circuit via St Cuthbert's Church. There is no pub or shop in Kentmere itself, so the named food stops are back in Staveley and Ings.
Where to go
Places in Kentmere
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesKentmere Reservoir Circuit
A moderate 6.5-mile circuit to the 1848 reservoir, built to regulate the River Kent for mills in the valley and at Staveley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Planning allowance: around 180 minutes for the 6.5-mile circuit
- Locality
- upper Kentmere valley
The Eagle & Child Inn
The nearest pub to Kentmere, in Staveley four miles from the valley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Planning allowance: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Staveley
The Watermill Inn
A named nearby pub option at Ings, five miles from Kentmere.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Planning allowance: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Ings
Walks & outdoors
1 placeKentmere Horseshoe
The classic 12-mile ridge circuit over Yoke, Ill Bell, Harter Fell and Kentmere Pike, described in the brief as one of the eastern Lake District's finest ridge walks.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Planning allowance: around 360 minutes for the 12-mile circuit
- Locality
- Kentmere valley and surrounding ridge
History & heritage
1 placeSt Cuthbert's Church
A church largely rebuilt in 1866, with 16th-century roof beams and a memorial to Kentmere-born reformer Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Planning allowance: around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Kentmere
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Three ways to explore Kentmere
Signature outings
The Kentmere Horseshoe
Trace the 12-mile circuit over Yoke, Ill Bell, Harter Fell and Kentmere Pike.
Bernard Gilpin's memorial
Find the church memorial to Kentmere-born reformer Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North.
Kentmere Reservoir
Walk the gentler 6.5-mile circuit to the 1848 reservoir that regulated water for mills downstream.
The village story
Kentmere: the valley at the road's end
A remote valley shaped by a defensive hall, high ridges, regulated water and the life of Bernard Gilpin.
The hall and the road's end
Kentmere Hall sits at the head of the valley, a fourteenth-century pele tower bolted onto a farmhouse. It's private, so you look at it from the footpath rather than the doorstep, but there's plenty to look at. Pele towers were built to keep people and livestock safe when the Scottish border was a matter of opinion, which is a lot of stone wall for a place this quiet.
The valley itself runs north from Staveley and then simply stops. There is no through road. The single-track lane climbs about four miles from the A591, and where the tarmac gives up, the open fell begins. This is the first thing to understand about staying here: you arrive on purpose. Nobody passes through Kentmere on the way to somewhere else, because there is no somewhere else to be on the way to.
The Horseshoe and the reservoir
What the valley has instead is a ridge. The Kentmere Horseshoe is a twelve-mile circuit over Yoke, Ill Bell, Harter Fell at 778 metres and Kentmere Pike at 730, and it is one of the finest ridge walks in the eastern Lake District. You do the whole thing in a day if the weather holds, and you sit in a car park at the bottom regretting it if it doesn't.
For a gentler day there's the reservoir circuit — around six and a half miles up to Kentmere Reservoir and back past the church. The reservoir was built in 1848, not for drinking water but to regulate the River Kent so the mills downstream at Staveley kept turning. The river rises on the fell just above it.
St Cuthbert's and Bernard Gilpin
St Cuthbert's Church stands on the reservoir route. It was largely rebuilt in 1866, though some of the roof beams go back to the sixteenth century. Inside there's a memorial to Bernard Gilpin, who was born in Kentmere in 1517 and became known as the Apostle of the North.
Gilpin was a Protestant reformer and Archdeacon of Durham who spent his life walking the remote parishes of the north, distributing food and teaching where nobody else bothered to go. His contemporaries called him the greatest clergyman of the age in England. He was offered the Bishopric of Carlisle and turned it down. A valley that ends at a dead end produced one of the most admired religious figures of Elizabethan England, which is a fact you can carry up the hill with you.
Practical remoteness and valley quiet
There's no pub in the valley and no shop. The nearest of either is back at Staveley, four miles south, where the Eagle & Child Inn does the job; the Watermill Inn at Ings is another mile beyond that. There's no railway station and no bus. You bring a car, or you walk, and both feel about right for the place.
In the evening the light comes off the fells and down the length of the valley, and there is nothing to hear but water and sheep.
Stay around Lake District
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Lake District, linked directly to their property pages.
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.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Kentmere Horseshoe — thegreatoutdoorsmag.com other published source
- Kentmere Reservoir Circuit — ramblers.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- St Cuthbert's Church — southlakeschurches.org.uk other published source
- The Eagle & Child Inn — eaglechildinn.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Watermill Inn — camra.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation