Ridge House

Ridge House An old school house nestled in the Howgill fells, lovingly converted by Jonny and Mary. Now a luxury holiday home sleeping 6

Love a good before and after! This is the master bedroom which we doubled in size (horizontally and vertically!) by taki...
04/06/2026

Love a good before and after! This is the master bedroom which we doubled in size (horizontally and vertically!) by taking out the ceiling so you can see the roof timbers the whole way up. We sanded back the dark varnish on the trusses and stripped out the fitted cupboards which were hiding the purlins. All the plaster came off the walls and we went right back to the stone (this room had a lot of damp and both wet and dry rot!!) so we could insulate in sheepswool and wood fibre board and allow the building to breath. Once we’d re-roofed we finished the walls and ceiling in tongue and groove boarding and painted it in Setting Plaster which is my all time favourite bedroom colour as it’s so calming and un-pink 😂 We also moved the stairs so the entrance to this room was less pinched and we could create a dressing room area where the old landing was and an en-suite out of the original house bathroom. If you look carefully at the floorboards you can see where the old stairs went and we’ve matched new floorboards in 😊

Beautifully captured by

04/06/2026

My version of slow living: spend all morning cleaning at 100mph to make sure I get the changeover done in time for the next guests, realise I’m done with 2hrs to spare, sit down, eat something, decide I’ve finally got time to refill my fountain pen (obvs a lockdown purchase when filling your inkwell was a good way to spend time) rather than have the guests suffer the injustice of reading a welcome card written in biro (🙀) Don’t worry this is only a bi-annual task (thank goodness) and I am very smug about never having to buy a plastic ink cartridge again 😂

03/06/2026

We went up Wild Boar Fell for a wild camp a couple of weekends ago and it was utterly idyllic 🏕️

It’s one of my go-to local walks as it’s just a 10 minute drive up the road from Ridge House and there’s a quad bike track the whole way up to the fell gate. So it’s a really nice accessible fell walk for all ages. The last bit to the top is a bit steeper but then there’s Sand’s Tarn as either a picnic spot or a wild camp location which provides a good incentive! It’s also rare to see another soul up there so a good one for the summer hols when lots of places in the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales are super busy. (The joy of the Howgills being a well-kept secret!) ⛰️

I’m not sure we could do up and down in a day yet with our 5&3 year olds, so adding in a wild camp stopover was perfect for us as the kids were so excited and it meant we could set off at 5:30pm (the joy of light evenings!) It took us 2 hours to get to the tarn and the kids walked nearly the whole way (obviously with a lot of encouragement sometimes in the form of sugar 😅)

Thankfully all 4 of us still fit in a 2 man tent so our packs weren’t so heavy that we couldn’t manage a little carry on the way down when little legs got tired (note to self, bring more breakfast next time!)

We were home for 9am (obviously straight into a changeover for me 😅) so everyone needed an afternoon nap later on!

Watch til the end for the red squirrel my 3yo spotted! 🐿️

21/05/2026

Took Col on such a lovely little walk yesterday that I don’t do often enough. Just a 10 minute drive from Ridge House, and you can park at Killington bridge and walk upriver - the sound of the river and the birdsong and the carpets of bluebells at this time of year are gorgeous. It’s flat and buggy/wheelchair friendly for the first part too which makes it a great one for little legs/balance bikes (lots of benches to stop and snack at too). It’s also great swim spot for those of you brave enough and for when the river isn’t quite so high! Will definately be adding this to my half term to do list with the kids ❤️

Swipe to rewind time all the way back to 2020! 😮 As we’re embarking on our new project I thought it would do us good to...
14/05/2026

Swipe to rewind time all the way back to 2020! 😮 As we’re embarking on our new project I thought it would do us good to remember that there was a time at Ridge House when we had a patchy roof, a gigantic hole in the ground and piles of earth/stone/rubble everywhere! (Thank you ) Maybe in another 6 years we’ll have a cover shot worthy of capturing by on a gorgeous spring day 🥰 Or maybe give us 10 years as we had more energy and fewer children back then 🤪

12/05/2026

We had a stunning day this weekend in the Langdales walking up to Stickle Tarn. It’s a brilliant walk and one of our faves - particularly for the scrambly bits for the kids. It’s an hour’s drive from Ridge House, super easy parking at the carpark and a lovely pub for lunch after . A fab one for this time of year before the lakes get too busy! Don’t forget your swimmers if you fancy a dip at the top 😊

07/05/2026

We had a letter from planning enforcement last week 😬 They’ve finally realised we’re living in our shed (the telltale signs were apparently the books and guitar 😅 - bit snoopy but hey ho) Anyway we’ve told them we plan to move out next month so they’re happy (phew) And the silver lining is that I can now share a bit more about our delightful Yard House (which cost us £10k to convert from shed to home) As I tell anyone who’ll listen I absolutely love our tiny home, we often give the kids their tea in the bath, I spend very little time tidying/cleaning and we are all in each others space 24/7 😂 Poor Jonny misses his office and workshop so will be glad when we move out but I will really miss living here. The sound of the stream and the non stop birdsong (when Jonny isn’t using power tools) It’s a total sun trap and the kids love a vast expanse of concrete to bike/draw/make potions on. Thank you Yard House for being our warmest, cosyest, tiniest home so far, and for teaching us that less space is more ❤️

I’ve been meaning to do a proper house tour post for ages but it’s tricky because at this time of year all I want to do ...
04/05/2026

I’ve been meaning to do a proper house tour post for ages but it’s tricky because at this time of year all I want to do is post pretty pictures of the garden and the hills beyond with all the gorgeous colours coming out! I have to remind myself every now and then that people do want to see the inside of the house too 😅 and that it is also quite pretty! Particularly when captured by the incredibly talented who took these photos for us exactly a year ago! One thing that I had never really noticed before but that her photos really capture is the way the colours of the interiors and the views compliment each other. This is not something I thought about or intended but I guess just something that happens when you live in a place so surrounded by nature. I don’t think it’s coincidence that I picked green, yellow and pink as the main colours for the house and we’re surrounded by hills covered in yellow gorse with a pink cherry blossom outside the window! Then last autumn I noticed the new cushions I’d bought for the snug were the exact shade of red of the copper beech tree outside that window - again not a decision I was consciously aware of making! Our brains and nature are so intertwined ❤️🌸☀️🌳 Thank you for making me notice all of this through your gorgeous pictures!

We lost our big tree in a storm this winter, which was sad. It’s been lying on its side for months waiting for us to do ...
20/03/2026

We lost our big tree in a storm this winter, which was sad. It’s been lying on its side for months waiting for us to do something with it.

The ‘something’ began with Jonny fixing boards to it to make it climbable. Of course our eldest promptly fell off and broke her wrist.

Then he cut steps into the trunk so it’s now a little safer (maybe).

Then we tackled the branches to fill the log store. There’s something very cyclical about chopping wood in spring - thinking about next winter already while daffodils pop up all around us.

I’ve been quiet on here the last few weeks as my Dad recently died. I haven’t felt like doing what I’d normally be doing - posting about how wonderful it is that Spring has arrived (it is still wonderful, but I’m not quite as joyous as usual).

But writing is supposed to cathartic so here goes.

Instead of drafting newsletters and working out next year’s pricing I’ve spent 2 days chopping wood. Thankfully in this job that counts as work so my productivity addiction is satisfied. And I’ve been thinking about my Dad a lot. He enjoyed chopping wood - see the before and after of us tackling a huge fir that that thankfully missed their house in 2017 - I think they’re still getting through the logs today!

My Dad was ill for the last few years so never got to see Ridge House as it is now, finally finished. But I think he’d like it, and I think he’d like the fact that I’m now doing something he’d consider a weekend job on a week day. He probably imagined spending his retirement chopping wood, sailing boats, going on holiday and spending time with his grandchildren - not fighting his illness.

It helps me to be in a place where I have memories of him - he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day in the church I can see from the garden, he held my children as newborns in this house, we ran and then walked in the hills around us.

Someone recently described losing a parent to me as ‘profound’ and I think this is the only word I’ve found so far which goes some way towards describing it. Maybe words do help after all…

In the meantime I’m sticking to chopping wood, listening to the birds (he’d be able to name them all) and thinking about my Dad

I’ve gone right back to the beginning and started sorting through photos of our first month in Ridge House in December 2...
26/02/2026

I’ve gone right back to the beginning and started sorting through photos of our first month in Ridge House in December 2017.

Gosh we had a lot of energy back then 😅

It’s turned into a slightly rambling newsletter where I waffle on about how we fell in love with it on that first visit nearly 9 years ago now!

How we’d planned to do not very much but how that plan went out the window within 5 minutes and we ended up ripping out the kitchen on day 1 and building a new temporary kitchen in time for Christmas 🤪

How within that first month we quickly lost a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom… and all the carpet, Lino, velvet curtains and wallpaper (that it turns out were actually doing quite a useful job of keeping the draughts out!)

Let’s just say there was a fair bit of mission creep in those early days. Along with some brilliant finds like the shed full of Belfast sinks and coal which kept us from freezing our socks off that first winter.

Anyway, if you’re interested in following our renovation journey at Ridge House over the past 8 years then sign up for our monthly newsletter via the link in our bio. First chapter comes out tomorrow! 🙏

Address

Ridge House, Cautley
Sedbergh
LA105LZ

Telephone

+447813025213

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