The Lingholm Estate
2016 - ongoing • Initial project 240 sqm
Project Overview
The Lingholm Estate is a historic 40-acre site near Derwentwater. When the Seymours purchased the estate in 2013, they set out to restore the buildings, gardens and visitor facilities, reopening the site to the public. Beatrix Potter holidayed at the Lingholm Estate and the restored octagonal walled garden is believed to have inspired Mr McGregor’s garden. The garden now grows produce used within The Lingholm Kitchen, a new-build café overlooking the garden, focused on locally sourced food and home-baked goods. When the café and shop were first developed in 2016, the owners had never operated either before. Jane was brought in to translate the vision into a practical customer-facing layout and counter arrangements that would support efficient day-to-day operations. The café quickly established itself as a popular Lakeland destination for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea.
The brief for the initial phase was to create a practical, well-planned café and retail space that complemented the impressive new building and could operate smoothly in a high-footfall environment. Jane worked closely with the team to develop counter layouts, customer routes and back-of-house arrangements that supported a fast-paced food service operation.
As the business grew, the owners chose to reclaim the original shop space to create additional seating and capitalise on the strong demand for the café. Jane has returned to Lingholm multiple times over the last 10 years to support ongoing developments across the site. This has included designing layouts for a new-build bakery, adapting existing counters to increase café capacity and showcase the expanded bakery range and most recently overseeing a full toilet refurbishment.
After several years of trading, Lingholm reviewed how the café and shop were performing. The café was consistently outperforming the retail offer, so the decision was made to reduce the shop footprint and ultimately remove it entirely, allowing the space to be reconfigured around café service.
A key operational challenge was congestion between the kitchen and front-of-house, which was creating pinch points at peak times. Jane was brought back in to review flow, adjust the layout and make best use of existing equipment, adding new elements where needed to meet the updated operational requirements.
The café quickly became a flagship visitor attraction for the estate and a key revenue generator.
The extended counter and revised layout allowed Lingholm to:
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increase the number of café covers and therefore daily revenue
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bring their bakery offer to the forefront
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improve operational flow for staff
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enhance the overall customer experience by improving the throughflow of customers and reducing wait times
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From Our Client
"We asked Jane to help us with the design and layout of the front of house of our new café and retail shop that we were building on the Lingholm Estate near Keswick.
We had a clear vision on the branding and image we wanted to create and we knew the 3,000 sq foot contemporary building we had chosen had the potential to deliver the look we wanted, but we recognised that we needed help with the retail layout and the all-important front counter.
After hearing about Jane, we had an initial discussion and from the very outset we had total confidence in Jane’s ability to deliver what we were looking for. Her experience in the area of on trend retail layout and front of house café service was invaluable and she designed and executed the fit out to a high standard, whilst carefully listening to our requirements and changing small details to fit with the demands of the business.
We would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Jane to any prospective clients."
JENNY SEYMOUR,
OWNER, THE LINGHOLM ESTATE
