Lupton: historic buildings and milling history

If you’re looking for a hotel in Lupton and are interested in historic architecture, the town’s built heritage provides a specific focus for planning your trip. It ranges from a listed building and church furnishings to milling technology and an archaeological site. The different forms and dates are easy to compare without grouping them into a single period.

Architecture and building history

Boxtree Farmhouse and Lupton Tower is a Grade II listed building. It has an L-shaped plan with gabled wings facing east. Lupton Tower is a three-storey rendered tower with a projecting battlemented parapet. The layout, the orientation of the gables and the tower’s roofline describe different aspects of the building.

Foulstone adds dates and details from the façade and interior to this picture. A date stone bears the inscription “EBA/1655”; extensions date from the 18th and 19th centuries. The central porch has rusticated quoins and a ball finial. The interior includes a stone staircase with iron balusters and a large segmental-arched fireplace recess with mason’s marks.

The other houses also represent different periods: Greenlane End is a farmhouse dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. Inside Low Fell House, there are chamfered beams. Lupton Bridge has a dressed-stone segmental arch and a straight parapet topped with coping stones. The focus in one place therefore ranges from dating features and interior details to clearly described structural elements.

Church and milling technology

The Church of All Saints comprises a nave, a north vestry and a chancel arch apse. Inside is a plain octagonal font. It probably dates from 1686 and is said to have been transferred from the parish church at Kirkby Lonsdale. Both its date and origin are thus identified as uncertain or based on tradition.

At Lupton Cornmill, the focus shifts from façades and floor plans to milling technology. The building probably dates from the early 19th century. Most of the machinery inside, including the millstones, is made of wood and has been preserved. Alongside the date stones on other buildings, the cornmill offers a distinct perspective on building history, with the emphasis here on technical components.

Landmarks and landscape

An irregularly curving enclosure lies at the summit of Kitridding Hill in Lupton. A magnetic survey revealed a symmetrical, shield-shaped structure. This feature of the archaeological landscape is therefore described both in terms of the course of the enclosure and the structure revealed by the survey.

A milestone at Hornsbarrow gives distances of 10 miles to Kendal and 6½ miles to Milnthorpe; it also has a benchmark at the top. Unlike the date stones on buildings, this milestone records distances along the route. This makes it a distinct point of comparison if you’re interested in historic markers and inscriptions.

A route description published in 2012 gives the Plough Inn in Lupton as the starting point for the “Newbiggin and Hutton Roof Crags” walking route. Near the beginning, the route crosses Lupton Beck. Before planning a walk, check the current route and access so you can compare the information with the conditions for your trip.

When choosing where to stay, you can weigh these themes according to your interests: architectural forms and interior details, dates, or historic traces in the landscape and route descriptions. This keeps Lupton at the centre of your hotel search, while the specific built heritage offers an informative impression of the variety of its history.

Discover more destinations: Brampton, Waterhead, Bouth, Temple Sowerby, Bewcastle, Roose, Askam-In-Furness, Dufton

Return to the regional travel overview: Cumbria.