SELF-GUIDED WALKING HOLIDAYS FROM OUR UK COUNTRY HOUSES
"Go as you please" from our UK country houses to balance independence with peace of mind. Use them as your base to visit local attractions or use our Discovery Points to borrow easy-to-follow maps and routes. Share your plans so we can track your safe return. Or simply relax in our lounges, explore our gardens or enjoy a roow with a view. Best of all you can still connect with fellow guests at mealtimes and in the evening
The walking and your days
Offering complete freedom and flexibility, the walks available from each country house are the established ones, the national trails and regional paths already on the map, waymarked, and walked by many before you. The Discovery Point sets them out: a board, folder or screen with each walk's distance, terrain, climbing and a sense of the day's shape, so you can pick what suits.
Each day, walkers heading out on their own fill in an Independent Walker Card at the Discovery Point, so the house knows who has gone where.
Relax at our country houses
The country houses are the heart of HF Holidays. Most are historic properties whose grounds, lounges and libraries belong to the holiday for the week.
Derwent Bank stands in gardens that run down to the shore of Derwentwater, with Cat Bells across the water and Keswick a couple of miles east. The house dates from 1785 and has been HF's since 1937, and keeps an orangery, a licensed bar and a lounge, with formal gardens, a putting green and a croquet lawn behind.
Lee Wood, in the spa town of Buxton, joins the houses in 2027. A Georgian building of 1830, run as a hotel by one family for close to seventy years before HF took it on, it stands a short walk from Buxton station, with the gritstone edges of the Dark Peak and the gentler dales of the White Peak from the door.
The rest of the estate runs from the Yorkshire Dales and Snowdonia to the Brecon Beacons, the Shropshire Hills, the North York Moors and the Isle of Wight coast. On a self-guided holiday each house runs as it always does, with a cream tea on arrival, breakfast and a packed lunch to take out, and dinner among the other guests.
What's included
A Self-Guided Walking Holiday is full board at the country house. The price covers:
- An ensuite room for the stay.
- A cream tea on arrival.
- Cooked breakfast each morning, a packed lunch on walking days, and three courses each evening in the country house dining room.
- The Discovery Point, with the suggested walks set out.
- Full use of the country house: lounges, library, gardens, bar, and where the house has them, drying rooms and boot stores.
