Welcome to Lowfield House

On retirement from owning and running the Three Shires Pub in Little Langdale Arthur & Alison Scriven (Grandparents to current owner James) bought the plot of land upon which Lowfield House is now situated from Joe Pepper - a local farmer from the Valley. The year was 1957.

The ¾ of an acre plot had the footing of an old barn still on it - all be it long since demolished at that point. However, this enabled planning permission for Lowfield House to be granted, and built upon the footprint of the old barn. Lowfield was built by local builder Donald Bowness and the landscaping done by Hayes of Ambleside over the years of 1966/67. Unfortunately Arthur passed away in 1964, but Alison moved in to Lowfield in 1967, and it was considered to have state of the art technology for the time.

Alison lived there until her death in the early 1990’s. During this time Gran had a Lifelong friendship with a lady named Mrs Gaskell. She had originally started working for Arthur and Alison at the Three Shires Inn, and then afterwards became home help at Lowfield until Alison passed away. Mrs Gaskell continued to be a Housekeeper for Lowfield – which was now a holiday home for the families of Christine and Martin (Alisons Children) Upon Mrs “G” retirement, her daughter - Janet Gaskell - then became the house keeper for Lowfield until her retirement in 2016, at which point her daughter in law took over the housekeeping duties. This is wife to Craig Gaskell – hugely respected local Building Contractor, and son of Janet. Craig  has done all the recent refurbishment of Lowfield House, along with Fallowfield Projects of Stavely, Ambleside Plumbers, and Steve Price Electricians (all Local trades).   

After Alison’s death, Lowfield was kept as a family home and used regularly by the family and friends of both Christine and Martin. Christine sadly passed away in 2008, but her husband Michael (my Father) kept the property running with Martin. When Michael passed away in 2016, 75% of the title passed to sons James, Richard and Duncan, with Martin still retaining 25% equity. James and Richard agreed to buy out Duncan and Martin to avoid the house being sold so it could remain within the family for a 3rd generation and beyond.

At this point, Lowfield House had not had any modernisation since it was originally built, and as a result James and Richard - with a great deal of help from respective wives Jan and Coot (Caroline) undertook and project managed the modernisation and renovation along with Craig Gaskell. 

As a young lad Craig use to come and mow the lawns and do odd jobs for mum and dad when they had Lowfield, so it seems perfect that Craig was now responsible for pulling the property into the 21st Century.

In the spring of 2022 Richard and wife Caroline decided to pursue other property interests in Gloucestershire where many of their friends lived. Which required James and wife Jan buying out Richard to keep Lowfield in the family.

Other points of note about our beloved Lowfield House;

• The Squirrel sculpture to the side of the drive is mounted on the stump of the old family Christmas tree which was planted out in the late 1970’s once it became too big to be brought into the house. the tree was blown down in the January storms of 2022. Leaving a rather large stump and the question of what to do with it
• Brothers, James and Richard Lloyd, proposed to their respective wives at Lowfield
• Richard was christened in Little Langdale Chapel
• Both Arthur and Alison are buried at Chapel Stile in Great Langdale
• Christine’s ashes were scattered on Lingmoor, so she can look down upon her beloved Lowfield House
• The family constructed a cairn in her memory, and every time one of the family walks up Lingmoor they take a stone to place upon the cairn (which is now visible from the Living Room window)
• There are two settles in the Three Shires Inn that Arthur and Alison purchased when they owned and ran the pub
• As with the Lloyd/Scriven family, the Gaskells have been associated with Lowfield for 3 generations - in fact 4 now that young Jack (son of Wayne - brother and work colleague of Craig) is responsible for watering the garden and mowing the lawns
• Wayne and his family live across the valley at Stang End, so he is able to walk over after school.

Lowfield still remains a holiday house for the family and hopefully for many generations to come, but we have decided to make it available for others to enjoy and appreciate what a special place it is.