Lake District guest house sold for nearly £1m

Rum Doodle guest house at Windermere in the heart of the Lake District National Park has been sold from an asking price of £915,000 by the specialist hotels team at real estate advisors Colliers International.

Acting on behalf of owners Gregor Stewart and Emma Hawley who are leaving to undertake another project in the hospitality sector, Colliers sold the property with nine en-suite bedrooms and three-bedroom owners’ cottage to Steven and Tina Salt, relocating from Maidstone, Kent.

The property was built in 1879 as a house and surgery for the local doctor and called Braemont House. But Gregor and Emma changed its name to Rum Doodle after a mountaineering spoof inspired by the author’s holidays in the Lake District in the 1950s.

Haydn Spedding, associate director, hotels agency at the Manchester office of Colliers International, secured the sale during what he described as “a very busy spring market” for such guest house transactions in the Lake District National Park.