Withnail and wet Sleddale

'We've gone on holiday by mistake. We're in this cottage here. Are you the farmer?'

Withnail, Withnail and I (1986)

In 1985 filmmaker Bruce Robinson chose Sleddale Hall as a location for his 1960s-based tale of two unemployed actors, Withnail and I, and this quiet valley on the eastern fringe of the Lake District has never been the same since. Telling the semi-autobiographical story of Marwood (‘I’, played by Paul McGann) and his exploits with the debauched Withnail (Richard E Grant), the film follows the London-based thespians as they embark on a holiday in the Lake District. Withnail’s Uncle Monty (played by Richard Griffiths and who Robinson has suggested was inspired by his encounters in 1968 with Italian director Franco Zefferelli) owns a tumbledown farmhouse in the hills – Cow Crag in the film, but Sleddale Hall in reality – that they attempt to use as a holiday cottage. The hall, originally a deserted hill farm, was transformed with minimal set building into the grim northern wilds of Withnail’s imagination.

Other locations nearby include the packhorse bridge where Marwood and Withnail attempt to catch fish with a shotgun (crossed in this walk), and the phone box in Bampton, where Withnail tries to talk to his agent. Somewhat mundanely the ‘Penrith Tearooms’ and pub scenes were shot near Milton Keynes, and the ‘view’ from Cow Crag is of neighbouring Haweswater, not Sleddale’s diminutive reservoir.

Ironically the film made little money on its initial release, scant reward for the late George Harrison, the ex-Beatle whose Handmade Films had stumped up half the £1.1 million it took to make. Grant went on to become a Hollywood star, and McGann became Dr Who. When United Utilities put the house up for sale in 2009 it was bought by a fan for over £250,000. It is on private property and is not open to the public.

Leave the car park by the dam at its far end, walking up a damp track towards a gate by a clump of trees. Beyond the gate follow the boggy track up the valley, ignoring a turning to the left.

The track peters out by an old farmstead near the head of the reservoir. Maintain your direction, through one gate, over a little footbridge and through a second gate. Skirt round the edge of a boggy area before picking up a clearer track again through a gap in a wall. The path continues to be damp until you reach a stone bridge over Sleddale Beck on the right.

Cross the bridge and climb the bank on the far side to a stile. Turn right along the ascending track. Beyond a copse of trees there is a junction by a barn. Sleddale Hall is directly up the slope above you and you can walk around its perimeter, returning to this point. Remember the hall is private property and there is no public access to the building itself.

Go through the gate beside the barn and walk along a farm track, now heading back out of the valley. Approaching the farm buildings at Sleddale Grange, go through a gate and thread between a shed and some sheep pens to another gate, emerging on the far side and finally leaving the farm buildings by a gate onto a surfaced road. Follow the descending road for a mile (1.6km), passing through a gate by Green Farm and continuing on through yet another gate down to Thorney Bank.

A few hundred yards beyond this farm, a narrow path drops down to the right and through a gate to a footbridge. Cross the bridge and, on the far side, join the surfaced road, turning right to walk back up to the car park by the dam.