Hole In T’ Wall

The ‘Hole in t’Wall’ (officially called The New Hall Inn) is the oldest pub in Bowness, built in 1612 and nothing much has changed, apart from electricity.

To track down this 401-year-old inn, you have to turn off down a narrow little Windermere lane called Low Side, and, at the point where it meets another narrow lane called Low Fold, look sharply to the right and keep an eye out for wooden tables.

On the outer wall, there’s a mural depicting Thomas Longmire, who was in charge here from 1852 to 1862, at the same time as being champion wrestler of all England (“a quiet-looking giant”, observed Charles Dickens, who drank here in 1857).

Inside, there are fireplaces, both active with flames, and dormant and rusting, in the form of ancient stoves. Some are in the ground-floor bar, others down the little staircase in the lower Smithy Bar.

Here, a large sign bears witness to the days when this part of the pub was a forge, with the words: “The blacksmith he did sweat in here, and slake his thirst with Hartley’s beer”.

This, it turns out, is how the pub got its name. Known originally as the New Hall Inn, it became the Hole in t’Wall thanks to the gap in the brickwork that was knocked through so that the blacksmith could be served a beer while at his anvil.