Garstang: the golf club and country hotel north of Preston

The northern golf-and-hotel entry, out towards the Fylde and Bowland.

Garstang golf club has country hotel provision alongside the course, north of Preston. It is the northern counterpart to Shaw Hill south of the city.

Garstang itself is a market town on the A6 between Preston and Lancaster, and its position is the argument for staying there: it is within reach of Beacon Fell and the southern Bowland fells as well as of the city.

As with every entry in this category, a car is assumed and the city centre is a drive.

The northern end of the corridor

Garstang is a market town with a high street of its own, so this is really a stay in Garstang that happens to be near Preston, and the search behaves that way. The road frame is on the places to stay sheet.

Garstang is the furthest of the northern entries and the only one that is a town in its own right. It sits on the A6 roughly halfway between Preston and Lancaster, with the Lancaster Canal running through it, and it has a market square and a working high street. Staying here is closer to staying in a small Lancashire market town than to staying near Preston.

What that position is good for

Three landscapes are within reach and Preston is only one of them: the Bowland fells to the east, the Fylde and the coast to the west, and the city to the south. That range is the reason to choose the northern end of the corridor over anything closer in. The canal towpath also gives a flat walking route through the town that has nothing to do with the road.

The city centre is a drive of around eleven miles. Bus services run down the A6, but a car is the practical assumption for a stay out here.

What else is west of the centre

Garstang's own geography is the Lancaster Canal and the market square. A canal towpath is a flat continuous public route with two centuries of history on it, which gives the town a walking route that has nothing to do with the A6 — the same corridor that reaches Preston at Haslam Park on the city's western side.

From here three landscapes are within reach and the city is only one of them: the Bowland fells east, the Fylde and the coast west, Preston south. That range is the argument for the northern end of the corridor.