The approach from the road is deceptive: park up by a tractor and take a set of wooden stairs behind another house. It doesn’t seem remotely remote. But then, when you reach the top of the steps, you see the standalone wood-and glass-cabin on three levels zig-zagging up the hill to a sensational lookout over Lake Windermere.
The shack is not a shack at all, it’s an architectural beauty straight out of the Design Museum, brimming with an eclectic mix of furniture, from the Heron chair and stool by Ernest Race, backed with a smart dogtooth blanket, to the 1950s Vanson dining chairs. Urbanites will love its gadgets: the Vita iPhone dock, Sky TV, the hubcap shower. And there’s a fox mounted on an oak wall. Not any fox, but a romantic, vintage fox (bagged on 14 February 1914) from Churchill’s Chartwell estate.
Basil oversees kitchen proceedings – it’s terrifically well-equipped, with its Parmesan grater, an unexpected Bialetti-style coffee pot and wooden-handled, brushed-chrome kettle as well as a bottle of Laphroaig in the hospitality bar hiding in the desk.
The simple, upstairs bedroom has a white double bed and a small crystal vase of daffodils, in tribute to Wordsworth; in the morning, remote-controlled blinds open smoothly to the vision of trees, twitching and swaying gently in the breeze, views of the sun rising over eco-grassy rooftop of the sitting room below.
When tourist honeypot Windermere calls, take the five-minute crossing to Bowness-on-Windermere to explore the east side of the lake.
Sleeps: Two
Price: From around £750 for a three-night stay
Contributors: Suzy Bennett, Matt Buck, Peter Browne, Tania Cagnoni, Harriet Chubb, Jessica Diamond, Jake Eastham, Caroline Ednie, Olivia Falcon, Daisy Finer, Laura Fowler, Lisa Grainger, Iain Hutton-Jamieson, Debbie Jeffrey, Tabitha Joyce, Juliet Kinsman, Fiona Lintott, Hazel Lubbock, Grainne McBride, Caroline Metcalfe, Gabriele O’Rorke, Helen Pickles, Issy von Simson, Melinda Stevens, Francesca Syz, Martin Wainwright, Alice Walker, Pete Winterbottom
