The firing of an antique cannon from a famous local landmark has kick-started the tourism season with a bang for a hotel group in the Lake District.

English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues has re-opened its doors to guests at its luxury venues in the Lake District and North Lancashire, including Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa on the shores of Windermere.

The cannon is fired on special occasions, this momentous time at 3pm on Saturday 4 July 2020 to mark the end of the Covid-19 lockdown for the hospitality and tourism sector.

The cannon was purchased by Tim Berry, one of the group's directors, in the mid-1990s. It represents a cannon which sat on the end of the jetty at Low Wood for hundreds of years, and was first mentioned in Thomas West’s guide to the lakes in 1778.

Thomas West wrote about Low Wood Bay: “No other inn in this route has so finer view of the lake”. He also noted that “a small cannon is kept there to gratify the curious with the remarkable reverberations of sound which follow the report of a gun in those singular vales". This cannon would also have been familiar to the poet William Wordsworth, who lived nearby, and whose 250th anniversary is being celebrated this year.

English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues MD Simon Berry said: “We’re ship-shape to open our doors safely, in line with government guidelines and best practice from around the world to ensure a Covid secure environment.

“The summer season is now underway, and we still have the best days ahead."