Drunken Duck Inn

About Drunken Duck Inn

The Drunken Duck sits at a lonely crossroads at Barngates, on the high ground between Ambleside and Hawkshead, and has been an inn since the coaching era. It is a whitewashed former farmhouse with a slate-topped bar, low beams and open fires, and it has spent the past thirty years building a reputation for food and beer that carries well beyond the Lake District.

There are eleven bedrooms, split between the inn itself and a converted building across the yard. They are individually designed and larger than the exterior suggests, with big beds, roll-top or walk-in showers and, in several cases, views over the tarns and towards the Langdales. The rooms above the bar can hear a little of the evening trade, which the inn is honest about; the courtyard rooms are quieter. Breakfast is cooked to order and taken in the dining room.

The kitchen is the main draw. The menu goes well beyond pub cooking, with a daily-changing carte using local game, Cumbrian lamb and fish from the coast, and it has been listed in the Michelin guide for years without ever losing the character of a pub. The bar pours ales from Barngates Brewery, which the inn owns and operates on site, alongside a wine list that is unusually long for a rural pub. Booking for dinner is effectively essential.

The setting is genuinely remote for somewhere so close to the honeypots. Tarn Hows, Grizedale Forest and Hawkshead are all within a few miles, Ambleside is ten minutes down the hill, and there is walking straight from the car park. It suits walkers, couples wanting somewhere quiet with good food, and anyone who would rather stay in a proper inn than a hotel. There is little spare space, so it is not well set up for large groups.