Lowther Castle is a country house in the county of Cumbria, England. It has belonged to the Lowther family the Earls of Lonsdale, since the Middle Ages but is now a fully managed ruined shell of the castle and some gardens since 2011. This is our second visit to Lowther and the first was in spring 2016, a year before the official opening in 2017. On the last visit there was no Courtyard café and the gardens in front of the castle ruins had just been planted out. The Lost Castle adventure area had just been started and an orchard, that we did not visit this time, had not been planted very long.
On our last, one spring, the fields on the east side of Jack Croft’s Summerhouse were in flower with thousands of white Narcissi and Jack’s pond looked better back then with some ducks on it and the walk back towards the castle was lovely with the grass banks covered in golden daffodils. However on this visit the new Rose Garden was open and looked a treat with every shrub named.
If you visit please do not expect to see all places on the map that I show in my video. It is lovely plan illustrated by Sarah Farooqi on how the gardens and areas will look as time passes, so many areas are still “work in progress”. The Parterre Tapestry Garden and the New Rose Garden are beautiful, all designed by Dan Pearson.
I would like to go back again to see the results, perhaps one spring or when their wild flower meadow is at its best in midsummer.
Thank you for view viewing.
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Some brief notes on Lowther Castle and Gardens .
Around 1939 to 1940 the castle was requisitioned for the war effort and used for tank development but was returned to the family in 1954. The family could not afford to maintain it so offered to give it away to the National Trust and other institutions. However, in those depressed post-war years they did not find any takers so, to avoid taxes, they stripped the castle and removed the roof.
Significant improvements have been achieved since then. After the death of Lord Lonsdale in 2006, the chicken-broiler unit and the trees were removed. With a great deal of funding from various sources, some garden restoration was done and restoration of the castle shell and conversion of the stables was also completed.
After an initial £9 million restoration, the castle and some gardens opened to the public in 2011 for the first time since 1938 but other garden areas were still overgrown at that time. In 2016, the Lowther family again began to manage the property in advance of the official re-opening for the 2017 season. In October 2018 the part-demolished castle shell and the wrecked garden was resurrected. Lowther once again was one of the leading showplaces of Cumbria and in 2018 was a larger visitor attraction in the Cumbria Tourism Awards and in mid-June 2019, the adventure playground in the woods was and still is a big attraction for younger visitors.