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Welcome to Holker Hall & Gardens

Visitor Information

How to Get to Holker

By Car： Follow brown signs an A590 from JB6, M6.Approximale travel times: Windermere-20 minutes, Kendal-25 minutes, Lancaster-45 minutes, Manchester-I hour 30 minutes.

By Rail: The nearest station is Cark-in-Cartmel with trains to Carnforth, Lancaster Preston for connections to major cities & airports.

Opening Times

Sunday-Friday (closed on Saturday)11:00 am-4:00pm,30 March-2nd November.

Admission Charges

Hall & Gardens                Gardens

Adults:              £12.00                                £8.00

Groups              £9                                       £5.5

Producers:  Market 13th April

Join us to taste a variety of fresh local food and drinks. Meet the producers and get some excellent recipe ideas.

Holker Garden Festival 30th May

    The event celebrate its 22^nd anniversary with a great show of the very best of gardening,  making it one of the most popular events in gardening.

National Garden Day 28th August

Holker once again opens is gardens in aid of the disadvantaged. For just a small donation you can take a tour with our garden guide.

Winter Market 8th November

This is an event for all the family. Wander among a variety of shops selling gifs while enjoying a live music show and nice street entertainment.

  Are you sometimes a little tired and sleepy in the early afternoon? Many people feel this way after lunch. They may think that eating lunch is the cause of the sleepiness. Or, in summer, they may think it is the heat. However, the real reason lies inside their bodies. At that time—about eight hours after you wake up—your body temperature goes down. This is what makes you slow down and feel sleepy. Scientists have tested sleep habits in experiments where there was no night or day. The people in these experiments almost always followed a similar sleeping pattern. They slept for one long period and then for one short period about eight hours later.

       In many parts of the world, people take naps in the middle of the day. This is especially true in warmer climates, where the heat makes work difficult in the early afternoon. Researchers are now saying that naps are good for everyone in any climate. A daily nap gives one a more rested body and mind and therefore is good for health in general. In countries where naps are traditional, people often suffer less from problems such as heart disease. Many working people, unfortunately, have no time to take naps. Though doctors may advise taking naps, employers do not allow it! If you do have the chance, however, here are a few tips about making the most of your nap. Remember that the best time to take a nap is about eight hours after you get up. A short sleep too late in the day may only make you feel more tired and sleepy afterward. This can also happen if you sleep for too long. If you do not have enough time, try a short nap—even ten minutes of sleep can be helpful.

Booking a trip on an online travel site is convenient, but comes with its own set of problems.

    ◆They know who’s going to spend more.

    Last year, U. S. travel research company Orbitz tracked people’s online activities to test out whether Mac users spead more on travel than PC users. Turns out that on average, Mac users lay out US $ 20-30 more per night on hotels. As a result, online travel sites show these users more expensive travel options first. To avoid paying more, sort results by price.

    ◆Their software doesn’t always link to the hotel’s system.

    A guaranteed reservation is almost impossible to come by anywhere-but the risk of your flight or hotel being overbooked increases with third-party providers. The middleman’s software isn’t immune（防护作用的）to system errors, so always call the hotel or airline to make sure your booking was processed.

    ◆You could miss out on loyalty（积分）points.

    Third-party providers can get between you and frequent flyer miles or points. Many hotel loyalty programs don’t recognize external sites, others award only minimum points without special offers, like double points on hotel stays.

    ◆Don’t be fooled by packages: Often, they’re low-end items grouped together.

    Ever notice how travel sites recommend a hotel, a rental car, and tour package all in one click. These deals usually feature travel that no one wants, like flights with multiple layovers（中途停留）. Check the fine print.

    ◆Once your trip is purchased, you’re on your own.

    An online travel agency can’t provide assistance the same way an agent can if a flight is cancelled or a room is substandard. Basically, when you arrive at the airport or hotel, you’re just another customer who booked at the lowest rate.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that in order to achieve contentment, one should "cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously."It turns out Emerson—who explored the meaning of a good life in much of his work—wasn't far off when it comes to What we now know about counting one's blessings. Research is continually finding that expressing thanks can lead to a healthier, happier and less-stressed lifestyle.

How can we, as Emerson advised, be thankful for each thing that contributes to our lives? Below are four habits that could help you cultivate gratitude on a daily basis.

Keep a journal.—Research has shown that writing down what you're thankful for can lead to a range of wellness benefits. Keeping a gratitude journal can reinforce positive thoughts—something particularly helpful as the brain tends to naturally focus on what goes wrong. Putting pen to paper can also help you make more progress as you work toward personal goals. In order to reap the full benefits of keeping a journal, Dr Robert Emmons, gratitude researcher and psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, recommends writing for five to 10 minutes every other day."You really need to commit to doing it, and if you write it down eventually it will become more automatic," Emmons says."It's like exercise—you're not just going to get up one morning and go running, you need to have a plan.

Don't avoid the negative.—Expressing gratitude has been proven to generate more optimism, but thankful people also don't shy away from the negative. Emmons says that while we often associate gratitude with focusing on the good and avoiding the bad, the key to leading a thankful life is embracing setbacks as part of your overall journey. Emmons suggests recalling a hard time you once experienced—chances are, you'll start to feel grateful for your current state and for overcoming former challenges.

Spend time with loved ones.—Thankful people know they didn't get to where they are by themselves—and they make it a habit to spend time with those people who matter most."Gratitude really helps us connect to other people," Emmons says."It actually strengthens relationships and relationships are the strongest predictors of happiness and coping with stress."Expressing appreciation for loved ones can also help create closeness by allowing others to see how you look at them. According to Dr.Michael E.McCullough, a University of Miami researcher, your feelings of gratitude benefit more than just yourself."More than other emotion, gratitude is the emotion of friendship," McCullough told the New York Times in 2011."It is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their estimates of how much value they hold in the eyes of another person."

Volunteer.—Everyone needs a little help sometimes—and grateful people know there's no other way to acknowledge this than by paying it forward. In his book "Thanks!, "Emmons notes that those who volunteer often feel grateful for the experience to give back."Since service to others helped them to find their own inner spirituality, they were grateful for the opportunity to serve, "he wrote. As recent research published in BMC Public Health points out, volunteering can result in fewer feelings of depression and increased overall well-being. Emmons suggests examining your own talents and use them to help others, noting that people become more grateful as givers rather than receivers.

Adults understand what it feels like to be flooded with objects. Why do we often assume that more is more when it comes to kids and their belongings? The good news is that I can help my own kids learn earlier than I did how to live more with less.

    I found the pre-holidays a good time to encourage young children to donate less-used things, and it worked. Because of our efforts, our daughter Georgia did decide to donate a large bag of toys to a little girl whose mother was unable to pay for her holiday due to illness. She chose to sell a few larger objects that were less often used when we promised to put the money into her school fund(基金）(our kindergarten daughter is serious about becoming a doctor)

    For weeks, I've been thinking of bigger, deeper questions: How do we make it a habit for them? And how do we train ourselves to help them live with, need, and use less? Yesterday, I sat with my son, Shepherd, determined to test my own theory on this. I decided to play with him with only one toy for as long as it would keep his interest. I expected that one toy would keep his attention for about five minutes, ten minutes, max. I chose a red rubber ball-simple, universally available. We passed it, he tried to put it in his mouth, he tried bouncing it, rolling it, sitting on it, throwing it. It was totally, completely enough for him. Before I knew it an hour had passed and it was time to move on to lunch.

    We both became absorbed in the simplicity of playing together. He had my full attention and I had his. My little experiment to find joy in a single object worked for both of us.

Getting caught in a traffic jam can be one of the most depressing things about traveling around a busy city. Now engineers in China have come up with a solution that could reduce traffic.

“Batie”, an elevated bus that is 4.8 meters high and 7.8 meters wide, allowing it to travel over vehicles (such as cars, buses, or trucks) with a height of less than 2 meters. holds passengers on its upper level and lets traffic pass under it, made its first test run on Aug 2 in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province.

 It can cut down on traffic greatly and therefore reduce the country’s increasingly worrying air pollution, the developers of the TEB told The Week.

 It is also expected to save costs compared with other public transportation (交通运输) like the subway. “Able to carry 1,200 people at a time, the TEB has the same functions as the subway while its cost of construction is less than one fifth that of a subway” Bai Zhiming, the engineer in charge of the TEB project, said in a video interview with CCTV News.

 While it has been said that the bus could be a solution to world’s traffic problems, it has also caused criticism (批评) and doubt.

Yao Tao, head of the Nanjing Institute of City and Transport Planning, listed some other possible problems, including the fact that present traffic facilities (设施) and rules would have to be changed.

“Safety is the most important thing,” Liu Daizong, China transport program director at the World Resources Institute, told CNN. “How would cars drive and turn under the bus? If there were an accident, how would you move passengers and vehicles out from underneath?”

I was born and raised in England in a culture where privacy and “keeping yourself to yourself” were valued traditions. Speaking to strangers was not encouraged. People were most hospitable and friendly—but only once they had been introduced to new people.

However, I have been lucky enough to spend some time in both Italy and the US，where I found traditions of hospitality and politeness to be very different.

I experienced Italian hospitality first-hand on a crowded railway carriage travelling, one afternoon，from Genoa to Florence. Sinking gratefully into an empty seat, I was berated(训斥) in rapid Italian by a gentleman who was returning to this seat—it had not been “spare” after all. I apologized in English，and got up to allow him back into the seat. The gentleman obviously had no understanding of the English language, but he, too，realized my genuine mistake. He smiled and gestured for me to remain in the seat，and he himself remained standing in the corridor for the remainder of the journey. The other occupants of the carriage smiled and nodded at me and made me feel quite welcome amongst them. I feel that if this had been in England, a foreigner who made a mistake would not always be so kindly treated.

Transport also featured in the differences I noticed between English and American culture. I flew to New York on a plane with mainly English passengers. We sat together in near silence. Nobody spoke to me nor, as I expected, to anyone else they did not know. They felt it was not polite to intrude on someone else’s privacy. However, when I travelled across the United States, whether by plane or Greyhound bus，I was never short of conversation. Conversation was going on all around me and whoever sat next to me was happy to introduce themselves and ask me about myself. They obviously felt it would have been rude not to speak to another person, whether they were strangers or not.

    Some scientists will say it is impossible to read minds. They will also tell you that you can make educated guesses on what a person might be thinking or feeling. Perhaps there really is nothing mysterious about the power to read minds. Perhaps it is simply human sense based on observation and educated guesses after all, but that’s really a useful ability to learn.

    Learn body language. How a person moves and holds their hands, and even what their eyes are doing are actually telling about what is going on inside their head. For example, pupils（瞳孔）tend to grow larger when you are interested in or excited about something. If you are talking to someone and making eye contact, finding their pupils are large and round, chances are that they are not feigning interest in the conversation. Someone biting their nails is probably nervous. Someone who folds their arms across their chest when they are not cold is probably trying to put a barrier between you and themselves.

    Learn to mentally put yourself in another’s place. Scientists have recently discovered that your brain has neurons（神经元）that become active when you watch someone do something the same as we did the active when you watch someone do something the same as we did the action ourselves. So when you are able to open yourself to understanding how other people are feeling, you can figure out reasons and predict future actions, reactions, even thoughts.

    Sometimes you can use Extra Sensory Perception (ESP)（超感觉力）to read someone’s mind. This does not mean you will literally be able to read their minds like a book. Instead, you will receive impressions or feelings, which are difficult to explain.

    To improve your ESP ablities, take up meditation（冥想）. Because meditation helps enable you to purposely put your brain in a state of relaxed awareness, where you will be more successful in reading people and receiving impressions.

    Practice and combine all of these steps. You will soon find yourself able to read people’s minds.

 Increasing numbers of airports, especially in Europe, are promoting a "silent airport" idea. It is to reduce noise pollution, such as airport-wide announcements, without sacrificing timely and helpful updates of information.

   International airports were once characterized by their high voices, competing gate announcements and so on.

   This is all changing.

   Angela Gittens, director general of Airports Council International (ACI), says there is a growing desire among airports and airlines they serve to "create a calm, relaxed atmosphere" without being disturbed by announcements.

   "Passengers can relax while they wait for their flight to board in the common airside lounges(休闲区), and food and drink areas," she says.

   In June, Helsinki Airport in Finland—a country where the tourism slogan is "Silence, Please" —became the most recent airport to adopt the silent concept.

   As part of its commitment to quieting things down, announcements for flights are made only in boarding gate areas.

   Lost track of time in the shop?

   Too bad.

   Nobody's going to call you to your flight, as announcements in all terminals will be made only in exceptional emergency circumstances.

   Heikki Koski, vice president of Helsinki Airport, says that improved flight information display systems and interactive kiosks(交互式自助服务机), together with advances in mobile technology, are changing the way airports communicate with passengers.

   At Munich Airport, InfoGate kiosks allow for video-based, face-to-face conversation with a live customer service representative in the traveler's language of choice. Interactive signs, on the other hand, give directions at the touch of finger. Passengers can tap a "you are here" display to get directions and approximate walking times to their destinations.

   Of course, an airport will never be as silent as a temple.

   There will continue to be a need for airport-wide emergency announcements, along with boarding calls.

   But at silent airports, the latter can be restricted to specific gates, as has been adopted in Helsinki.

Many Shopping malls now have special areas that offer shoppers their first chance to experience “VR technology”.You may have entered one out of curiosity, or you may think it is just another piece of useless technology. Whatever your opinion, VR, or virtual（虚拟的）reality, is going to become a big part of our lives very soon.

2016 saw the introduction of many fancy products in the worldofVR,including MicrosoftˈsHoloLens and Samsungˈs Gear VR. Allofthem offer anexcitinglook at the newrealities" andopportunities that VR brings.

These,however, are the early days of a technology that is expected togofromstrength tostrength. And 2017 looks like it is going to be the year in which VR technology really takes off.

For a start, using VR will become more normal in 2017. Microsoft and Intel have already discussed their plans for simpler and less expensive VR headsets.

The idea of VR will stop being a sci-fi (science-fiction) idea, and instead it will turn into an industry of real products used as ways to show off imagination." said Andrew, a designer at US VR Company, Survios.

It is also expected that VR products will play a part in more common and real-life fields like fashion and film. For example, to enjoy the atmosphere and energy of the front row experience at a fashion show, fans will no longer have to go alongin the flesh. Instead people will be able to enjoy the experience by just wearing a VR headset at home.

You can also expect VR mirrors and fitting-rooms sooner rather than later. ˈˈ This is an especially good opportunity for brands(品牌)looking to offer very personalized experiences.ˈˈ said Roy DeYoung from US-based marketing agency, PMX.

As time goes on, there will be less discussion about whether people will accept VR technology. It will simply be a discussion of when.