A Cottage in the Clouds
Low Parkamoor | Coniston Water | Lake District | UK
A steep unpaved track winds through the hills above Coniston Water in the Lake District. I am in a 4x4 pickup with Lake District farmers John and Maria who take me up to their ‘Cottage-in-the-Clouds’, high on the fell. Sometimes we stop, Maria gets out to open a gate. ‘Our sheep graze in these hills,’ John explains.
After a final gate, an old grey-stone farmhouse slowly emerges. John and Maria's flock of Cheviot sheep curiously followed the pickup. ‘Welcome to Low Parkamoor, our Cottage-in-the-Clouds,’ Maria says. The cottage is sunk into the hills rising 200 metres above Lake Coniston. The view is breathtaking. With only the steep unpaved track and no neighbouring houses, the 16th-century farmhouse is remote and completely off-grid. Maria opens the front door. It is like stepping back in time. The old dark grey flagstone floors, the roughly plastered white walls and wooden ceilings. There is only basic electricity from a battery and a woodburner for heating. ‘Water comes from a spring straight from the hills,’ Maria explains. From every window, the view is fantastic. ‘But the best view is from the toilet,’ Maria smiles, ’through the window in the outbuilding where the traditional compost toilet is, there you have the best view over the lake!’
Low Parkamoor is a Lake District farmhouse build from 1680 to 1900
Because of its comparatively isolated position high on the fells above Coniston Water, it is now a holiday cottage. This remote location is a result of modern traffic taking the place of horse-drawn vehicles and foot passage. In the past it was a relatively prosperous farmstead with several barns and outbuildings. The whole house was refitted in the late 19th or early 20th century but nothing has been done to the house since, and consequently it has retained some traditional features usually lost. The farm was left abandoned in the 1950ies after the last farmer died, John tells me. There is a ruin of a once neighbouring farmhouse nearby.
Low Parkamoor is owned by the National Trust and run as a holiday cottage by farmers John & Maria as part of their farm diversification scheme, giving them additional income from the farm. The surrounding hills are also owned by the National Trust, John and Maria's Cheviot sheep graze on these fells .
Publication in Seasons Magazine (NL, 02-2025) about Maria & John's Cottage in the Clouds and their Lake District Tweed project.
Click on the image for the publication.
Photography + words © Anna Rubingh
