Hotel Hit Squad: Why Augill Castle in Cumbria is the perfect place for a 'spooktacular' family Hallowe'en
The best argument I know for having children is that they provide the perfect cover for your own infantile habits. Why is there Nutella in my fridge? The kids insisted. Why does my house appear as if squatted by a blended family of pigs and rhinoceroses? (If I were single, I’d be living in a minimalist temple.) Why does my Netflix suggest Danger Mouse over News at Ten?
And then there’s Hallowe’en. The grown-up take is that it is garish and sugar-fuelled. So of course, it was purely in the spirit of martyrdom that I drove the bickering back seat to a sweet spot between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District for a spooky weekend.
Augill Castle is itself a monument to sibling rivalry. John Bagot Pearson built it in 1841, picking the location because it was on high ground and overlooked the farm his brother Alexander inherited from their parents. He chose the design because – well, how do you top a castle?
He really went for it, too. His neo-gothic folly still has its turrets, towers, battlements, leaded stained-glass windows, vast oak doors carved into lacy shapes, and azure vaulted ceilings flecked with gold stars and edged by inscrutable golden faces.
Queen Victoria is rumoured to have stayed here. My four and seven-year-old have little of her decorum – but I needn’t have worried. The owners, Wendy and Simon Bennett, raised their children in the castle after buying it in 1997, moving from wing to wing as they painstakingly restored it.
Family photos grace the walls. Harry Potter sheet music sits atop the grand piano. A fort and playground are found in the gardens, and there are children’s DVDs in a tiny cinema room furnished with Forties theatre chairs.
In the library, the children raid a giant chest of dressing-up clothes and spend the rest of the weekend like the Pevensie children playing hide-and-seek in the house that leads to Narnia.
They are entranced by a collection of empire-era hats, a vintage gramophone, an abundance of antlers, a porcelain monkey and, most of all, the wall-mounted swords and a blow pipe which, Wendy explains, her husband swapped for his T-shirt and flip-flops while in Indonesia.
In the children’s bedroom, a quote is painted in gold along one curved, dark purple wall: “Sleep brings down upon me, the calm of childish dreaming, where innocence and happiness hold sway.” Two single, iron-framed beds are piled so high with feather duvets and pillows, the four-year-old needs a leg up to clamber in, then sits atop it beaming like the spoilt protagonist from The Princess and the Pea. Our adjoining room has William Morris wallpaper and an iron-framed bed that proves the most comfortable place I’ve slept. Antique studies of butterflies are framed on the walls, battered hardbacks occupy a shelf and vintage suitcases sit at the end of the bed.
“We never wanted it to feel like a hotel,” explains Wendy. And she’s right. If you are attached to slick service, minibars, minimalism and huge TVs, Augill is unlikely to be your bag.
If, on the other hand, you want to feel less like a hotel guest, more part of an elegantly dishevelled weekend party, step right in. You pour the drinks yourself, from an honesty bar that stocks British wines, independent spirits and local beers. Maisie the spaniel pads between the long oak tables that guests share at breakfast and dinner. The latter is only served Thursday to Monday. Sunday night is pizza night, on Thursdays pasta is served, and Fridays and Saturdays are for a three-course set menu (I had aubergine fritters, lamb shank and creme caramel, the kids opted for a Just William supper of macaroni cheese, sausages, jelly and ice cream).
Having run a Mayfair restaurant, Wendy now teaches cooking lessons to adults and children. We sign up for the special Hallowe’en session, wandering into the kitchen after breakfast (Emma Bridgewater crockery, since you ask, on which we had fresh fruit and pastries, then a full English with fabulous local sausages for the adults, and pancakes with – of course – Nutella for the smalls).
Wendy hands the four-year-old a grater and the seven-year-old a blade. I have visions of a Hammer Horror movie, but under her no-nonsense tutelage, both are soon engrossed in creating mummies in coffins (lemony meatballs, wrapped in cheese and scattered with pomegranate-seed guts, in potato skins), pumpkin soup, and witches’ fingers (vanilla biscuits with almond finger nails).
A whole morning passes in uncanny, uncharacteristic concentration. Most spookily, they then forget their pathological hatred of pumpkin, and drink their soup. Augill Castle has cast some sort of spell over my children. I just hope it is permanent.
A family of four can stay in a two-bedroom suite from ￡240 per night, including breakfast.