Seatoller

The Inn and the Pass

The Yew Tree is where Coast to Coast walkers stop to get their passports stamped, which tells you roughly how many of the people in Seatoller are passing through on foot. The pub was built in 1628, making it one of the oldest in Cumbria, and it reopened in April 2024 after a careful restoration. It won West Cumbria CAMRA’s Autumn 2025 Pub of the Season award. The kitchen does traditional pub food; the building itself once put up German miners brought over to work the graphite seams, which is a longer story than most pubs can offer.

Seatoller is a hamlet at the head of Borrowdale, sitting at the foot of Honister Pass. This is the last settlement before the road climbs, and the road climbs seriously — the B5289 reaches gradients of one-in-four as it works its way up to the summit. The fellsides rise on both sides. There is no church here; the nearest are at Rosthwaite and Grange-in-Borrowdale, a short way back down the dale.

Slate Workings and Fell Paths

About 1.3 miles from Seatoller in a straight line, with a longer journey by road, is the Honister Slate Mine at the top of the pass, the last working slate mine in England. Slate has been quarried at Honister since the 17th century, recorded from 1688, when it was carried out through Piel Harbour before there was any railway to help. The green Borrowdale slate came out of these fells and went to Sir Christopher Wren, who used it in his designs at Kensington Palace. The mine now runs underground tours and a set of Via Ferrata climbing routes bolted to the old workings, which is one way to reuse a hole in a mountain.

The walking is the main event. Dale Head, at 753 metres, stands above Borrowdale about 1.7 miles from Seatoller in a straight line; the climbing route is longer and reaches the classic Borrowdale ridge. Haystacks — 597 metres, and Alfred Wainwright's favourite fell — is about 3.3 miles from Seatoller in a straight line, with a longer walking route over Honister Pass and Gatesgarth; Wainwright's ashes were scattered on its summit, so you are walking to a place a man chose to be left. The Coast to Coast route he devised runs straight through Seatoller, which is why the Yew Tree keeps a stamp behind the bar.

Borrowdale's Ancient Landscape

About 1.0 mile from Seatoller in a straight line, near Seathwaite, are the Borrowdale Yews, ancient trees that Wordsworth wrote a poem about. The walking route is longer. They have been standing a good deal longer than anything else here.

Reaching the Head of Borrowdale

Getting in is a matter of the road or the bus. There is no railway. The Borrowdale Rambler links Keswick and Seatoller; check the current timetable before travel. Beyond Seatoller, the road climbs over Honister Pass. By car you come up the B5289 from Keswick, or over the top from Buttermere if you fancy the one-in-four the other way round.

A Hamlet for Walkers

It is a small place, most of whose visitors have their boots on and somewhere to be. The Yew Tree waited nearly four hundred years for its restoration and got it in the end.