A Lake District spa resort is to host Cumbria's inaugural Gingerbread House Festival, a national celebration and bold re-imagining of a centuries-old culinary and cultural tradition for creative bakers.
Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa is working in partnership with Grasmere Gingerbread to deliver the event on the shores of Windermere over the weekend of 20-22 November.
The festival, which has been endorsed by Cumbria Tourism, will showcase ‘gingerbread house’ designs created by a host of competitors, including bakers, confectioners, and individual creators and crafters from across the UK.
The brainchild of Grasmere Gingerbread co-director Joanne Hunter, the launch of the Gingerbread House Festival has been marked with the opening of an official entry website to coincide with National Gingerbread Day.
“As The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop is the best-known, real life gingerbread house in the country, our Lake District home is the natural location for a national celebration of ‘gingerbread house’ creations that are both eye-catching and edible,” she said.
Mark Needham, general manager of Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa – a short distance from The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop – is thrilled to host the culinary competition which will raise funds for Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.
“The Gingerbread House Festival will bring together families, friends and visitors in the Lake District in a pre-Christmas gathering to celebrate exceptional British imagination, craftsmanship and creativity,” he said.
For Ben Berry, managing director of English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues, The Gingerbread House Festival is an example of Lake District businesses working collaboratively to enhance the tourism ‘offer’ to visitors and holidaymakers.
“Grasmere Gingerbread has been a supplier across our venues for over 25 years, and as another family run businesses in the heart of the Lake District, we're proud to be working together with them,” he said.
“We've always regarded their high quality, artisan produce as part of our collaborative efforts with suppliers to provide the very best for our guests. It is longstanding business relationships such as these that help us all to pool resources, come up with innovative, creative ideas and enhance what we all have to offer.”
Gill Haigh, Managing Director of Cumbria Tourism, said the event would further cement the county’s reputation for innovative and exciting tourism:
“As Grasmere Gingerbread is synonymous with the Lake District, it is fitting that, together with Low Wood Bay, it will host the inaugural Gingerbread House Festival this November."
“I am already looking forward to entrants using our inspirational landscape and scenery to create magical ‘gingerbread houses’ in the heart of Cumbria.”
Entrants are encouraged to let their imagination go wild. From traditional country cottages, elegant stately homes and global cultural landmarks to famous pieces of brutalist architecture, iconic modes of transport or even ‘emergency’ accommodation, The Gingerbread House Festival will shed a spotlight on all kinds of ‘gingerbread house’ designs.
“Although we are in the middle of summer and the dark nights of November seem a long way away, I would encourage people to start thinking about the kind of ‘gingerbread house’ they might wish to enter,” added Joanne Hunter.
The Gingerbread House Festival will involve fabulous prizes, with the best entry winning the accolade National Gingerbread House of the Year 2026.
To enter and find out more about The Gingerbread House Festival, visit here.
