George and Dragon

George and Dragon Clifton - Dog Friendly Inn in Penrith, Cumbria

Our owner Charles Lowther and his family lovingly restored the George and Dragon in 2008 and it’s now as beloved by locals as it is by visitors to the area. In every way, our roots are embedded deep in the rich history of our surrounding landscape and we’re proud to rear, forage and grow the majority of the ingredients you’ll see on our menus ourselves, on our family farms and within our kitchen gardens at nearby Askham Hall.

You’ll find our field-to-fork approach genuinely ingrained throughout all that we offer; where we can’t provide the produce ourselves, we try to source it locally.

Our hope is that you’ll find our wine list second to none, our team warm and friendly and our restaurant and bar stylish, cosy and welcoming. When it’s cold we’ll have our four fires roaring, or in good weather you’ll find the perfect sun trap along with chunky weathered tables in our private courtyard. We love looking after families and we heartily welcome dogs and muddy boots too.

If you’d like to stay over, we have 10 bedrooms you can choose from… Each is different, individually designed with furniture and art from Charles’ family’s collection, but all have fabulous beds, lovely linens and en suite bathrooms. All our bedrooms are dog-friendly and we offer Family Rooms too.

We can’t wait to welcome you here.

Our Food
We’ve won many awards for our food over the years, something we put down to our field-to-fork philosophy, our home-grown ingredients and our talented kitchen team.

We breed our own pedigree shorthorns and rare breed pork; the roe deer and red deer venison we serve is from our woods and fells and we grow seasonal fruit, vegetables and herbs in our kitchen gardens at Askham Hall, just two miles down the road. We forage our land for wild garlic, mushrooms and berries and we get our free-range lamb and longhorn beef from local suppliers too.

We're incredibly excited to welcome back head chef Paul Mckinnon.
Paul was the head chef at the George and Dragon when we purchased the pub and first opened the doors in 2008. He stayed with us until 2013 after helping open the kitchen garden cafe at what is now our Michelin starred sister hotel Askham Hall.

In the time he's been away from the company he's worked with Terry Laybourne at 21 Hospitality. He's also worked at the Lakes Distillery. Paul was involved with food development for Westmorland and Gloucester Services and has been helping the Langstaff County Inn at Borrowdale.

Dogs
We love dogs and have several of our own.  Well-behaved pooches are welcome in our bar area, but not in our restaurant and all our bedrooms are dog friendly. We have a Doggy Welcome Pack for our overnight canine guests, which includes a treat, a map of local walks and poo bags.