Willowfield guest house to cease trading in October

The Arnside family owned B&B will be closing on October 31, and will be transformed into three new apartments.

Georgina and Peter Birch, who have been owners for the past twelve years, will be retiring after the closure.

They plan to stay in the Willow Field and maintain their ownership of the building.

The couple moved to the Lakes from Sussex and have been lifelong visitors of the Lake District.

Peter Birch said: “It’s a time of mixed emotions. We are certainly looking forward to retiring but it’s sad that the Willow Field will no longer be a guest house.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to find a buyer for the business, so we decided it was best to call it a day.

“The last twelve years have been very enjoyable for us. The last year has been understandably rather strange for us but overall a very good experience.

“Me and my wife decided to jump out of the rat race back in the end of 2008 and come up here to make a new way of life for ourselves.

“We will continue to live in the Willow Field. The house will be redeveloped and turned into three separate apartments. We will continue to own the building and live in one of them.

“We will still get the endless pleasures of the area, and especially the view. It’s stunning.

“A lot of our regular guests have been sad to see us closing, and one by one we’ve had the chance to say goodbye to them as the year’s progressed.

“The current restrictions certainly aren’t helping but we just want to bring things to a close on our own time scale.

“This was definitely the right thing to do. When we started it was a gamble but one that paid off. Sometimes you have to take a chance, and if you don’t take the chance, you’ll always wonder what if? That’s how we found ourselves in 2008, so we said why don’t we give it a try and if it doesn’t work out, we can go back and do something else.

“If we hadn’t, we’d have always wondered what if? We didn’t want to live wondering what could have been.”