We stumbled across the Graythwaite Estate and Hammerhole whilst we were looking for somewhere for a bunch of older friends and families to get together for our annual meet up. You cannot fault the location - right on the front at Lake Windermere, so much so that you can stumble out and ten or so steps later you are in the water. This was fabulous for us as enthusiastic open water swimmers / kayakers / SUPpers! It also meant the view and atmosphere was stunning - so peaceful in the mornings and evenings with just the mist; ducks and kingfishers flying past. The house is a lovely stone-built property and provides good accommodation, with most rooms having an en-suite, plus 2 additional bathrooms meaning lots of space (and hot water) for everyone, given this can sleep up to 10 people. Everyone reported the beds as being super comfortable. There are 3 double/king rooms and 2 twin rooms. Whilst the configuration cannot be changed, this worked well for us. Booking process was very clear and easy, great communication from the local team. There was a small but lovely welcome gift of tea, coffee, jam and biscuits.
The house is mostly quite comfortable, there is good seating provision in the front room with a couple of sofas and stand alone comfy chairs, and there is a big enough table for all guests to sit together - though the 'leaves' of the table kept coming apart and, once sitting, it's difficult to move around anywhere as you're squashed in against the wall on one side and sofa on the other. For the price, we would have expected a few more mod cons e.g. a coffee maker; but there was plenty of crockery and glassware and a large fridge freezer for storing food / drink. The outhouse with washer / dryer was really useful as a space to store dog stuff / swimmers / kayaks etc. This is lockable as well. A good supply of chopped logs provided - though very limited kindling so you have to buy more if you want to use the hot tub, fire pit or house wood fired stove. The heating was easy to use.
The hot tub is wood fired. It took us a while to fill it as the plug seemed to work - but think this was more a problem in my husband! We couldn't get the stove to work to heat the water so this was a wasted effort, but we weren't charged additionally so we didn't mind too much.
You have access to the swimming pool and games room - a drive away from Hammerhole, in the same place where the Farm Shop is. This is meant to be open daily (shop) but typically the one day we bimbled up there it was closed. There really needs to be some investment in the games room - it's really not worth the trip with only a ping pong table (no useable ping pongs and damaged bats). We didn't use the pool so cannot comment.
We didn't realise that we were there the weekend of The Lap - ultra running / hiking thing where participants race around the entire Lake. This wasn't too much of a problem, other than noisy runners coming past the house (which is close to the road) at 0600 in the morning, talking loudly and their headlamps bobbing along which woke a number of us up. Likewise, late on Sat / Sun, lots of cars leaving so an array of lights into bedroom windows.
Lovely lake walks very close to the house, and the ferry over to Bowness is also only a short drive (£6.45 each way for a normal sized car). We also did the walk up to the Claife viewing station, and beyond, plus there are great connections to other areas in the District. Nearest larger town is Hawkshead, though we didn't really visit there. Easy to organise a grocery delivery to the house as well. Other than this feedback request, no follow up email thanking us for visiting, which we've had from most other places we've stayed.
All in all, the location cannot be faulted and the house is great, if a little tired in places and some facilities on the Estate need improvement. We would come back again.