Staveley

Dorothy's Steps and the old freehouse

Behind the Eagle & Child Inn, a set of stone steps runs down to the River Kent. They're called Dorothy's Steps, after Dorothy Wordsworth, who stopped at a Staveley pub on the road between Kendal and Dove Cottage and recorded in her diary that she "washed my feet in the Brook and put on a pair of silk stockings by William's advice." William, for the record, was her brother. The steps are still there. The brook is still cold.

The Eagle & Child has been a pub since at least 1742, which makes the Wordsworth connection entirely plausible. It's one of the few remaining traditional freehouses in the Lake District, CAMRA-listed, with hand-pulled local ales including Hawkshead Brewery's and a beer garden that gets lively when the weather allows. The kitchen changes its menu regularly and cooks with meat from village suppliers, plus local fish and game. Thursday is burger night with a quiz. Friday is fresh fish. Sundays are roasts. Vegetarians and vegans are catered for, which not every Lakeland freehouse can say.

Where the Kent meets the mill

Staveley sits in the lower Kent Valley, four miles north of Kendal and two miles east of Windermere, on the flat ground before the fells close in. The River Kent runs through the middle of it.

At the heart of the village is Mill Yard, a former Victorian bobbin mill on the river. The mill once made bobbins for the Lancashire cotton industry and was a significant local employer in the nineteenth century. It now houses a bike shop, an outdoor gear shop, a café, a gallery, and a scattering of artist studios. The industrial bones are still visible under the craft businesses.

Beer made here, paths leading north

The same site is home to Hawkshead Brewery, which despite the name has been in Staveley since 2006, having started in Hawkshead village in 2002. It's one of the Lake District's most celebrated craft breweries, distributed well beyond Cumbria — Hawkshead Bitter, Windermere Pale, the dark porter Brodie's Prime, Red, Lakeland Gold. The brewery still brews here and runs a Beer Hall on the Mill Yard site, though the Beer Hall closed in September 2024, so it's worth checking the current opening status before you plan an afternoon around it.

From the village the Kentmere Valley opens north, narrow and unspoiled, with no road running through it. A six-mile walk follows the Kent up to Kentmere village and back. Staveley is also on the Cumbria Cycle Way, and the valley is popular with cyclists for the obvious reason that it's a dead end and stays quiet.

A second freehouse and the way in

A mile south at Ings, the Watermill Inn serves up to sixteen real ales — its own, brewed on site, plus fifteen guests. It's dog-friendly throughout, runs regular beer festivals, and is one of the most celebrated real ale pubs in the region. Between it and the Eagle & Child, the drinking here is well covered.

Getting here is easy by Lakeland standards. Staveley has its own station on the Windermere branch line, a ten-minute walk from the centre, and buses run from Kendal and Windermere. By car it's the A591, then the B5284.

The charter and the surviving steps

Staveley has held a market charter since 1329. The market is long gone. The steps down to the brook are not.