SPECIAL events and better than expected weather proved to be a double winner for South Lakeland and Furness over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Thousands of people streamed into the area for the popular annual Kendal Medieval Market and for the regular Cartmel Races.

All-year-round attractions were also busy and spokesman Robin Martakies said that the Windermere Lake Cruises team was pleased with business over the weekend. A special event at Brockhole made the Ambleside to Brockhole service particularly popular, and services ran every half hour rather than hourly. The additional service was due to continue through the half term holiday this week.

Ambleside Tourist Information Centre saw 4,148 visitors through the door from Friday to Monday, which was actually slightly down on the numbers of just under 5,000 during the equivalent Golden Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend last year. However, sales of souvenirs, books and maps were up on 2002.

Although the centre only really deals with last minute accommodation bookings, they were up by 85 per cent from 16 last year to 31.

Centre manager Simon Blyth said that taken together the figures were good news for the tourism industry: "Easter was extremely good for us and we did really well. A few weeks after that we did go very quiet but then in the run-up to this Bank Holiday we have started doing really well, so I think it's looking very good, hopefully."

Thousands of families flocked to the races at Cartmel for the always-popular Bank Holiday meeting.

There was racing on Saturday, which attracted 9,500 people, while an even larger crowd of 19,000 turned out on Monday. There was also racing on Wednesday.

Racecourse general manager Charles Barnett said: "We had a very nice family-type crowd and a family atmosphere with everybody enjoying the fairground, competitive racing and barbecue."

Jimmy Moffatt, of Pit Farm Stable, in Cartmel, had his first winner as a trainer at his home racecourse, while trainer Charlie Mann, of Lambourn, had a double winner.

Mr Barnett said the racing was always highly competitive: "It's not the best racing in the country, which would be at Cheltenham and Aintree. It's the lower end of quality horse wise but it's very competitive because there are quite a lot of horses which are not the best horses."

Mr Barnett said the large numbers of people attracted to the races was good news for the local economy.

Brockhole, the Lake District National Park visitors' centre, marked the Bank Holiday weekend with a "really wild weekend" event.

The organisers were pleased with how the event went, and said that 4,000 people came along over the two days.

Iona Wilson, from Brockhole, said the idea was to look at the wildlife of the Lake District, and they were joined by the RSPB, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, the Aquarium of the Lakes and the Westmorland and Furness Bat Group. Visitors were also able to have a close look at two visiting otters.

Iona Wilson said: "Hopefully we can do it again because we all enjoyed it."

May 29, 2003 14:30