Photo of Croglin Fell

Nearby

The Lake District and the Pennines

Ravenbridge Mill is right at the bottom of Hartside pass. Hartside is a magnet for cyclists – it’s the big climb up onto the Pennines on the Coast2coast route. From Ravenbridge, at 600ft, you’re straight into the climb, up to the summit at 1900ft. Bring your bikes, and be careful coming down!

You can also walk up to Hartside – it’s four miles by road, and a bit less by the path – and if the weather’s good you can see Scotland, and the full panorama of the Lakes across the Eden Valley. And if you’ve had enough exercise, you can always drive the winding road – which regularly features on lists of “the top ten drives in the UK”.

When you reach the top of Hartside, you can just admire the view, or you can carry on, to the lovely little town of Alston, and over the Northumberland moors, to Middleton in Teesdale, High Force, Cow Green Reservoir, and all the other places in the wild and beautiful North Pennines AONB.

That’s the beauty of Ravenbridge – the Pennines on one side, the Lake District on the other, and all the red sandstone villages of the Eden Valley in between. You can get to the foot of Blencathra in 35 minutes, and you don’t have to compete with the traffic of Windermere or Keswick.

There’s a good sized Co-op at Lazonby, 10 minutes away, and several supermarkets at Penrith, 25 minutes. Carlisle (40 mins) and Keswick (45 mins) are also easy to get to.

Things to do