Inside the Lake District resort set amid a fairy-tale panorama

Even though the Lake District is waiting to be explored, I’m having trouble motivating myself to leave Gilpin Lake House.

And given how heartstoppingly beautiful this Unesco World Heritage Site is, that makes the property – set in 100 acres four miles east of the lake Windermere shoreline and part of the prestigious Relais & Châteaux portfolio – very special indeed.

The countryside here is a fairy-tale fantasy world akin to, well, take your pick from any number of fables – Middle-earth, Wind in the Willows, Narnia. Possibly Avatar. Yoda’s refuge planet of Dagobah at a stretch. Dramatic crags, lost lanes, magical moss-covered woods and chocolate box hamlets abound.

I’ve travelled up from London with my bicycle for a pootle around this veritable Eden, but here I am enjoying a refined breakfast of perfectly presented eggs florentine, porridge with the creamiest of creams and a cafeteria of smooth and hot coffee, looking out at the property’s idyllic private lake – Knipe Tarn – and finding myself overcome with inertia.

My room in this hotel-come-country-house – one of only six, and named Harriet after one of the founder’s aunts – is a peach.

Serenely luxurious, it’s smothered in calming hues – whites, creams, light browns – soothing floral patterns and boasts a huge double-sink ensuite with a rainshower and standalone tub, plus a Rolls-Royce of a king-sized bed.

Two armchairs are thoughtfully positioned in front of a brace of huge windows for lake-gazing purposes.

Beneath the main building, meanwhile, is an enticing indoor swimming pool.

The staff are next level – charming, helpful and they move with a purpose.

I feel like hanging out here all day long.

There is a sister site to Gilpin Lake House about one mile away on a separate estate that I discover, after transferring there for night two of my sojourn up north, has similarly magnetic properties.

Called Gilpin Hotel, it’s set amid 21 acres of gardens and woodland, with the big-ticket attraction being Michelin-starred restaurant Source.

It’s helmed by Fat Duck alumnus Ollie Bridgwater, who was sous chef at the three-Michelin-star restaurant for five years.

I can report, after trying the six-course tasting menu, that his culinary expertise is evident in every dish.

His bread, flavoured with wild garlic and glazed in fermented honey, is good enough to be a main course, and his John Dory with Isle of Wight tomato and Herdwick lamb with wild garlic purée, asparagus and lush lamb jus perfectly cooked and elegantly plated.

The manjari chocolate dessert, Source’s take on a Black Forest Gateau that features a precision-made spheroid of chocolate mousse, is possibly the overall winner of the feast, especially if, like me, you have a sweet tooth.

The service is not the most polished (cutlery is occasionally plonked on the table haphazardly), but it’s enthusiastic, and the wine pairing rounds off the experience nicely, with an English sparkling rose by Gusbourne the first entry in the alcoholic ledger and the offering including a velvety Carmenere red wine by Chilean producer Vina Casa Silva that, by the time this review is published, I will almost certainly have purchased for personal domestic consumption.

Gilpin also has a more casual restaurant – Gilpin Spice, which has two AA rosettes. Here, jaunty staff deliver first-rate pan-Asian fare, including the best egg fried rice I’ve ever eaten (the waitress stirs in a fresh egg at the table) and knock-out pork belly.

If you book, ask to sit at the chef’s table double couches at the counter.

My sleeping quarters here? A stunning cedar-clad ‘spa lodge’ that’s like an oversized Scandi cabin on the outside and a mini hotel on the inside.

There’s an enormous bedroom/living room with a white modernist sofa and armchair, vast floor-to-ceiling windows affording a view of a richly vegetated pond, that Rolls-Royce bed is back – and there’s the ultimate ensuite, featuring a separate loo, a lounger, a tub big enough for the Bownessie beast of Windermere and a rain shower cubicle that doubles as a steam room.

Outside, meanwhile, is a standalone sauna and an enormous hot tub.

In the end, I do manage to extract myself from the Gilpin Hotel environs, with that first breakfast fuelling a potentially ill-advised road bike rampage up and down silly inclines to the north, including Kirkstone Pass and a vertiginous road aptly named The Struggle.

They take my breath away, and so does the scenery. Which leaves me with little left.

My figure-of-eight route overlaps to the west of Ambleside at Blea Tarn with an extreme cycling challenge taking place – the Fred Whitton – and some of the officials ring cowbells as I whizz past, unaware I’m an interloper.

Their encouragement is not wasted, though, as it spurs me on for the slog back to Gilpin.

On day two, feeling depleted, I head south, pedalling through charming villages, including Brigsteer and Crosthwaite, which lie in less lumpy but no less bewitching scenery.

I see more pheasants and lambs than cars.

Back at Gilpin Hotel there’s time for a mildly epic club sandwich in the hotel’s sumptuous lounge before I cycle – in the pouring rain – to Oxenholme station for an Avanti to London Euston.

As the train speeds south, I find myself Googling Gilpin room prices for when I next have an annual leave window.

There’s no question of inertia preventing a journey back north for another stay at a hotel that does the English hospitality industry proud.