The Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel is one of the UK’s most famous and most enviably situated hotels. It sits majestically on the shores of Ullswater in the Lake District, in 12 acres of woodland and immaculately kept gardens, and offers panoramic views across the lake with a dramatic backdrop of the Cumbrian fells. Sharrow Bay is widely regarded as the first country house hotel to be named as such, and it is also the archetypal countryside retreat, offering a magical blend of rural seclusion, breathtaking vistas, elegant sumptuous accommodation and some of the finest cuisine to be found anywhere in the UK. Make no mistake – with three red stars placing it among the UK’s Top 200 hotels Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel offers fine living of the very highest order, with an air of refinement and distinction that is rarely if ever found in a hotel these days.

The main house at Sharrow Bay dates from 1840, and was used as a private residence until 1948 when it was purchased by one Francis Coulson. With great determination, Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel was opened in the spring of 1949 and became England’s very first country house hotel. Francis Coulson joined forces with Brian Sack in 1952, and over the following decades Sharrow Bay grew in stature and reputation, becoming widely regarded as one of the country’s finest country retreats. It still is of course, and the programme of renovation and redevelopment of 2000 and 2001 saw the transformation of four bedrooms in the main house into two luxurious suites, as well as the rebuilding of the conservatory into a handsome lounge bar. Yet these developments have not changed the essential character and charm of Sharrow Bay, merely enhanced its already impeccable standards of luxury, quality and attention to detail. Some things of course never change, including the view across Ullswater, one of the many breathtaking views for which the Lake District has become legendary. Chiselled and gouged out by immense geological events over millions of years, the Lake District National Park contains some of England’s most beloved and unspoilt scenery; with rugged peaks, swooping valleys, great expanses of lakes and inky black tarns, as well as bleak yet romantic fells presenting irresistible to those who like a challenge.