GREAT LANGDALE CAMPSITE, CUMBRIA
Peering out from your tent each morning at the mist-shrouded Langdales is worth the pitch fee alone. Eight miles from Ambleside, this is a typical National Trust location: well-organised, efficiently run, and with just the right facilities. Great Langdale also comes up trumps in the “proximity-to-pub” stakes, too. Sticklebarn Tavern, New Dungeon Ghyll and Old Dungeon Ghyll provide fuel for ramblers, and are all within a 10-minute walk. Pitches £10-26 (including one adult, one tent, and vehicle). Extra adults £6, children 5-15 £3, under-5s free (Great Langdale, Ambleside LA22 9JU; nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/ great-langdale-campsite-lakedistrict)
TOM OUGH VISITED GREAT LANGDALE THIS MONTH...
There are three things that should be off-limits to drunk people, and those are, in ascending order of severity, driving, texting exes, and assembling tents. My God. Putting up a tent is fiddly enough as it is. When you’re drunk, the experience is a nylon nightmare.
I dread to think how my night would have gone if I’d had to go through that. I’d been on a walk in the north-west part of the Lake District, and with the day fading into early evening, had arrived at a campsite in Great Langdale. Fringed by trees and surrounded by craggy fells, it would have been a beautiful place to enjoy the last few hours of daylight. But I wouldn’t know, because I went to the pub.
So I guess the decision for Great Langdale’s would-be camper, arriving after a walk, is thus: a) proactively construct the tent, a process which, as discussed, sucks; b) swing back your foot and wallop that can 1,200 yards down the road, which is the exact distance between the campsite and closest pub.
It’s called Sticklebarn, and it’s a rustic former farm building that’s now a busy and scenic National Trust pub. It has a hearty food menu and a voluminous drinks selection. It’s ideal for walkers who, like me, feel a great sense of post-hike entitlement to a cold lager and a hot meal. It’s so ideal I suspect many a traveller has deferred their tent assembly to come here, have a few pints, and then stumble back to the darkened campsite to find, with horror, that their tent is still deep within its bag.
I’d wangled a princely wooden sleeping pod, so all I had to do on returning to the campsite that evening was noisily and clumsily unlock the door and unroll my sleeping bag. So my lessons is this: just go to the pub and leave the rest to the professionals. Unlik e your tent, you’ll be in good hands.