29 November – 23 December
Visiting
No booking, no appointment, free parking in the top field. Bring boots.
Finding us
Fellgate Farm, Crosthwaite Road
Fellgate Farm, Crosthwaite Road, Kendal, Cumbria LA8 8QR. Four miles west of Kendal on the Crosthwaite road. The entrance is a farm gate on the right with a cattle grid, about 300 metres after the second cattle grid on that road.
Satnav will take you past it. LA8 8QR drops you at the farmhouse, which is a quarter of a mile further on. Come to the gate with the cattle grid instead.
Parking is free in the top field. In heavy rain it is a field, and we will tow you out if you need it — it happens two or three times a season and nobody minds.
Opening times. Weekdays 9am to 4pm, weekends 9am to 4.30pm, every day from Saturday 29 November to Tuesday 23 December. We do not open on Christmas Eve.
Access. The yard, the barn and the first two rows are on hard standing and are wheelchair accessible. The rest is a working field on a slope. Tell us what you are after and we will bring trees to the yard rather than you walking the rows.
Dogs welcome, on a lead in the yard because of the netting machine, off it in the field.
Card and cash both fine. The signal is poor and the card machine occasionally sulks, so cash is genuinely useful.
How it works
Four steps, about half an hour
Come and look
No appointment. Park in the top field, take a saw and a barrow from the shed, and walk the rows for as long as you like.
Pick your tree
Every tree carries a height tag and a price. We will bring a pole over and hold it up against your ceiling height if you are not sure.
We cut and net it
Cut to order in about four minutes, netted, and carried to your car. Bring rope or string; we have both if you forget.
Get it home right
Cut an inch off the bottom before it goes in water and keep the stand topped up daily. That is the whole secret.
Before you come
Questions
From the last Saturday in November to 23 December. Weekdays 9am to 4pm, weekends 9am to 4.30pm, and it goes dark at half past three in December so come early. We are shut the rest of the year.
No, and there is nothing to book. Turn up, park in the top field and walk in. The first two weekends are busy between 11 and 2 — before or after that you will have the place mostly to yourself.
Yes. Tag it, pay a £10 deposit, and we will hold it up to two weeks and cut it the day you collect. About a third of our customers do this in the last week of November.
Within fifteen miles of Kendal, £12, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond that we do not, because it stops being worth anybody’s time.
Cut an inch off the base before it goes in water — the resin seals within a couple of hours of cutting and it stops drinking. Then keep the stand full. A 6ft tree drinks about a litre a day for the first week. That is genuinely the whole answer.
Kendal and South Lakeland both run January collections for chipping. Bring it back to us instead if you would rather — we chip everything on site and the chip goes back on the plantation tracks.
No. We finish at 3pm on 23 December, and everything left in the field stays in the field. There is no Christmas Eve bargain hunt, sorry.