Easy ULLSWATER

Within reach of the M6, Penrith is the perfect launchpad for a jaunt around Ullswater, as Peter Baber discovers on a Lake District tour

- Peter Baber

"We've come on holiday," Richard E Grant's character sneers in what has to be one of my favourite lines from the hit 1980s comedy Withnail & I, "by mistake." The place he is being so disparaging about, as any good film historian will tell you, is Penrith, in Cumbria. More precisely, Bampton, a village just the other side of the M6 from the town.

Which I find a little sad. Although there are actually quite a few places that with hindsight, I would say I had mistakenly gone to on holiday, the area around Penrith is certainly not one of them.

I can see that it might not have appealed very much to a couple of out-of-work, doped-up characters breezing in from London during the 1960s. But as a place to visit for a weekend in the 21st century, where you won't have to spend a huge amount of time winding down roads from the motorway to reach your chosen destination, it's hard to beat. Or so I discovered in May this year.

In fact, the caravan park that I was heading to was located so close to the M6 - a turn-off at junction 40, a couple of roundabouts and a half-mile drive along a woodland road that included a brief moment when I wrongly thought we weren't going to get under a bridge - you I could still just about hear the sounds of the motorway in the background.

Discovering the castle

Still, Lowther Holiday Park is a pleasant spot among the woods. It is part of the wider Lowther estate, and because the weather on my first morning looked less than promising, the friendly staff at the campsite shop suggested that I should make Lowther Castle my first port of call. They explained this was a lovely 15-minute stroll through the forest.