Eden Valley pause
Yanwath
A small Eden Valley hamlet shaped by one gastropub, a medieval hall house and the River Eamont.
- Best for
- A good meal paired with a riverside walk
- Give it
- Half a day, arriving by car
- Don't miss
- Yanwath Hall from the public path
The Fox verdict
A small hamlet with more character than facilities
Yanwath works best as an unhurried Eden Valley stop, with food, riverside paths and Ullswater close by.
The Yanwath Gate Inn gives the hamlet its focal point, while the River Eamont and the nearby Ullswater Way supply the walking. Yanwath Hall adds medieval history, but it remains a private home and is a view from public paths rather than a visitor attraction.
Where to go
Places in Yanwath
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesYanwath Gate Inn
A 17th-century inn revived as a gastropub in late 2017, with pub classics alongside more ambitious dishes.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Yanwath
- Access
- Check current opening arrangements before relying on a meal stop.
Ullswater Way
Nearby access to the long-distance route around Ullswater, suitable for adding a chosen section to a Yanwath visit.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes for a short section
- Locality
- around Ullswater
Ullswater Lakeshore
Ullswater lies four miles from Yanwath, close enough to pair a lakeside pause with the hamlet and its river.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Ullswater
Walks & outdoors
1 placeRiver Eamont
Walk the riverside paths beside the River Eamont near Yanwath across the level Eden Valley floor.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes for a chosen section
- Locality
- River Eamont valley
History & heritage
2 placesYanwath Hall
A Grade I listed medieval hall house combining a 14th-century pele tower with an attached hall range, visible from public paths.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 15 minutes for an exterior view
- Locality
- edge of Yanwath
- Access
- Private property; view only from public paths.
Parish church at Barton
Yanwath has no church; its parish church is at Barton, a short way from the hamlet.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Barton
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Three ways to explore Yanwath
Signature outings
The hamlet's gastropub
Make the 17th-century Yanwath Gate Inn the food stop, choosing between pub classics and its more ambitious gastropub dishes.
Walk beside the River Eamont
Follow the riverside paths near Yanwath for level walking beside the River Eamont across the Eden Valley floor.
The parish church at Barton
Yanwath has no church of its own; its parish church is at Barton, a short way from the hamlet.
The village story
Yanwath: inn, hall and river
One inn, one fortified hall house and a river give this small Eden Valley hamlet its reason to linger.
The Inn and the Flood
The Yanwath Gate Inn is a 17th-century inn on the edge of a hamlet that has no shop, no church, and no bus. It is also, on the evidence, one of the better places to eat for miles. The man who runs the kitchen came from Rogan & Co, Simon Rogan's restaurant down in Cartmel, and took the place over in late 2017. Before that it had spent the best part of two years shut.
The reason it was shut is worth knowing. In December 2015, Storm Desmond destroyed both the Eamont Bridge and Pooley Bridge, and Yanwath, a small place already, found itself cut off. The inn stayed closed for weeks, then longer, and only reopened when it was revived as a gastropub.
A Menu, but No Church
The menu runs from steak and ale pie and lasagne to lamb rump with cauliflower purée and sweet potato fondant, honey and ginger pork belly, and orange-seared tilapia. There is a Menu Rapide as well — two or three courses at a set price from a changing shortlist, for people who want to be fed rather than to deliberate. The pub was named Cumbria Dining Pub of the Year six times between 2007 and 2013, which is the sort of record that stops being luck.
There is no church here either. The parish church is over at Barton, a short way off, which is where you go for that sort of thing.
Hall House and River Valley
The other reason to come here is Yanwath Hall, on the edge of the village. It is a medieval hall house — a 14th-century pele tower with an attached hall range — and one of the best-preserved examples of its kind in Cumbria. It is Grade I listed, still lived in, and privately occupied, so you admire it from the public path rather than the doorstep. Pele towers were built for a border that spent centuries being fought over; this one has simply kept standing.
Yanwath sits on the floor of the Eden Valley, flat agricultural land two miles south of Penrith, with the River Eamont running past it. The Eamont drains Ullswater northward, and you can follow the riverside paths one way toward Penrith or the other toward the lake, level going the whole distance. Ullswater itself is four miles off, close enough to pick up the Ullswater Way, the long-distance route that loops the water.
Arrival and the Hamlet's Measure
Getting here means a car. There is no railway and no regular bus; the B5320 from Penrith toward Pooley Bridge passes nearby, and that is the whole of it.
What you get, then, is a hamlet with almost nothing in it except a very good pub and a house that has outlasted the border it was built to guard.
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.
- Yanwath Gate Inn — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Ullswater Way — lakedistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Ullswater Lakeshore — ullswater.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Yanwath Hall — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- River Eamont — check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Parish church at Barton — achurchnearyou.com national body or asset manager