By Clare Sherwen

Last updated 20:30, Thursday, 28 August 2008

LES AND Louise Kyle didn’t take long to realise that they’d hit on a winner selling home-made ice cream from their Buttermere farm.

Their ice-cream shop and tea room sits in the middle of the four-mile route around the picturesque lake.

And what could be better than a deliciously cool ice cream on a summer afternoon’s walk?

Buttermere Ayrshires has become a regular stop-off for walkers who call in for the creamy ice cream made from the farm’s herd of Ayrshire cows, resting their rucksacks and walking poles for a moment of indulgence.

They sit outside on picnic tables devouring cones filled with flavours such as honey and ginger, toffee and hazelnut, strawberry pavlova, or good old vanilla.

It’s not necessarily walkers who flock here, either: the farm has become a destination for customers who come from far and wide to sample its home-made ice cream.

“It seemed daft not to take advantage of our position with the path around the lake going right through the farmyard,” says Louise.

“We do get a lot of passing trade but it’s also built up over the years. Now people come from all over the place whether they’re out walking or not.”

The ice cream shop is housed in a former garage and dairy at Syke Farm, a traditional Lakeland farm set in a stunning backdrop a short walk from the lake and on the road to Honister Pass.

The buildings have been converted into an ice cream parlour and tea rooms offering light lunches including sandwiches and salad platters, cream teas, and cakes made by Cottage Pie in Dearham.

Like so many others of its kind in the county, the business began life in March 2002 as a consequence of the foot and mouth outbreak.

Louise, a keen amateur photographer, originally planned to open a gallery in the old garage, selling her own prints.

However, the 2001 epidemic prompted a rethink, and Les came up with the idea of launching an ice cream business instead.

Having worked as a chef at The Bridge Inn in Buttermere for a while, he thought he’d put his skills to good use.

They secured grant funding for the equipment and gave it a go.

“We started with a display freezer offering eight different flavours and it just grew from there,” says Louise. “We’ve gradually expanded over the years as the demand has grown, firstly by offering more flavours and then by opening the tea room.”

A new dairy for ice cream production arrived three years ago along with the expansion of the tea rooms, and the shop now employs one full-time and two part-time staff, along with Louise and Les.

The ice cream is freshly made every day using milk from the farm’s nine Ayrshire cows.

The rich, creamy milk also makes a difference to your cup of tea in the café.

“At busy times we can make three batches of ice cream a day,” says Louise. “It isn’t unusual for us to get through 30 five-litre tubs at the height of summer.”

Louise loves experimenting with flavours – strawberry and cracked black pepper being a particular favourite – and tries to ensure a variety of tastes and textures are on offer every day.

Among the fruit, toffee, chocolate and nut flavours, vanilla is guaranteed to be among the 12 on offer.

Sometimes Louise will use blackcurrants from the farm’s orchard or rosehips picked from hedgerows to flavour the ice cream, but most of the time she uses imported Italian flavourings, often in the form of pure fruit coulis.

“They are top quality and make the ice cream absolutely delicious,” she says.

Three years ago, Buttermere Ayrshires joined forces with Jennings in Cockermouth to use the brewer’s best-selling Cumberland Ale in their ice cream. “It proved very popular with men for some reason,” says Louise.

Syke Farm remains a working farm, running a flock of Herdwick sheep on Newlands Fell.

The herd of Ayrshires have been part of the farm since Les’s family moved there in 1958, their milk finding a new market for the 21st century.

Louise’s original plan to open a gallery for her landscape photography may have been shelved, but her work still hangs on the walls of the tea room as well as featuring on the front of the menu.

“To be honest, we’ve been so busy since we opened the shop I haven’t had much time for photography,” says Louise. “It’s been three years since I last walked around the lake.”