Cartmel

Around eighteen miles southwest of Kendal, and sheltered several miles inland from Morecambe Bay, the pretty village of CARTMEL is something of an upmarket getaway, with its Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms, winding country lanes and cobbled market square brimming with inns and antique shops. You’re in luck if you’re looking to buy a handmade dolls’ house or embroidered footstool, while in the Cartmel Village Shop on the square they sell the finest sticky-toffee pudding known to humanity. Quite what the original monks of Cartmel would have made of all this is anyone’s guess – the village first grew up around its twelfth-century Augustinian priory and is still dominated by the proud Church of St Mary and St Michael.