An award-winning community and environmentally focused farm which has become a popular attraction for those visiting the Lake District is looking forward to the opening of its latest project.
Basecamp North Lakes, located on the side of the A66 at Troutbeck between Keswick and Penrith, is opening seven new luxury cabins next month which will provide guests with a different kind of stay in the Lake District.
Emma Smalley, who is a director of Basecamp North Lakes, has been running the project for the last six months with the new cabins set to provide the perfect spot for couples, young families, and ‘anybody who enjoys a wildlife-focused, sustainable visit to the Lake District’ to stay.
Emma said: “We do a lot of work here on the site in terms of environmental projects, community projects; we have community garden, we have a forest school, and we have been doing lots of work on the site make new wetlands, lots of tree planting and hedge growing.
“For us, getting these cabins on the site was a way of giving ourselves the financial security so that we can carry on with the fun stuff, as I like to call it, which is the community and social impact work."
The seven cabins have all been made locally, with the team trying to use as much sustainable timber and finishings as possible from within the county.
Emma added: “We are really, really pleased with how they look. They are beautiful. I wanted to open up the site to people in a way that wasn’t going to affect all the environmental work that we have done.
“We’ve kept them in a very specific place just on one shore of the lake, we have put them on ground screws on stilts, so they are not affecting anything to do with ecology on the side of the lake.
“It just fits really nicely with the site, we think it’s a good addition."
All cabins come with a king-size bedroom, as well as a pull-out sofa bed in the living rooms, bathroom, kitchen, and even an outdoor balcony with an outside bath.
The team is currently working on a sauna and cold plunge to accompany the project and have a farm shop that is open seven days a week to supply guests with food and drinks.
"We just think it’s such a lovely spot to start your adventures, we have got everything you need on site, plus we are a really good location to access the rest of the national park," said Emma.
“Were so lucky, we’ve got such a nice bunch of local people that come to us, for some people we are their local shop. Everybody has been so supportive.”
The cabins are situated right alongside the alpaca and llama fields, so along with the chance to spot kingfishers, otters, wading birds, hares, and wetland amphibians, guests will also have a very rare chance to spend time around the herd.
Meet and greets and walks around the lake can be booked with the alpacas, with guests also provided with the chance ‘just spend time chilling with them at the end of the day when the site is closed to the rest of the public’.
They will also have free access to the community garden where they can join volunteers in any planting, composting, and harvesting, as well as out-of-hours access to the new wetland boardwalk and nature trail, with use of the communal woodland fire pit for cooking BBQs or marshmallows.
Speaking about the addition of the cabins, Emma said: "We have grown the farm a huge amount in the last four years, we have worked really hard to expand the customer base to make sure everybody is welcome and we got an offering for everybody.
"But the way the economy is at the moment, everybody’s budgets are tight and food prices have gone up so the margins to us is just getting slimmer and slimmer.
"For us this is a real bonus to have something that will be an additional income, securing everybody’s jobs, and creating some new jobs Aswell because we have got a lovely housekeeping team now."
Bookings have already been made ahead of the new cabins opening in August, with the team hoping there will be many more in the coming months.
