About a mile east of Ravenglass in Cumbria, and two hours from Manchester, Muncaster Castle overlooks the River Esk as it winds from the Lake District to the Irish Sea. The Grade I-listed castle has been home to the Pennington family for at least 800 years, yet it missed the Domesday Book of 1086 because the land was not then considered part of England. Later records in 1208 would finally include it.
Ewan Frost-Pennington, one of the youngest in the family line, jokes: “the bureaucrats didn’t make it that far.” He adds: “They did the first Domesday book and then they were like - oh, we should actually do the peripheries. So then they finally made it to Muncaster. The previous one, I think, only made it to Bootle.”
The castle and the festival bill
In the 1460s, according to family folklore, Sir John Pennington offered sanctuary to Henry VI after a defeat at the hands of his House of York enemies. Henry VI would perhaps not recognise the sixth edition of the Krankenhaus festival, which takes place on the castle grounds this August bank holiday weekend. The bill includes Adult DVD, Stereolab, Charlotte Church’s Pop Dungeon and festival founders Sea Power.
Krankenhaus, people say, sits somewhere between an indie rock gig and a village fete. Alongside the music there are steam trains, bingo, dog shows, brass bands and a private viewing of a Grade II-listed water mill. Notably, the festival has no fences.
'A pure fluke'
Guitarist Martin Noble, who spent his early years in Bury, says: “At festivals, you are cornered in by lots of heras fencing and it does feel like you’re trapped. But the Muncaster grounds and gardens are so huge.. The sheer scale of the festival feels massive.”
Bass player Neil Hamilton stumbled across Muncaster during a Lake District ramble shortly before the first edition in 2019. “He thought that's going to be a nice place for something special… It was just a pure fluke,” recalls the band’s manager David Taylor.
The Frost-Penningtons were initially lukewarm. “I think mum and dad had this idea that festivals and rock bands were drugs and problems,” Ewan says. “And that’s not on-brand with a castle. [But] what we found with Krankenhaus is just like a fantastic match… It's a micro Festival. The atmosphere is incredible.”
Winning over the family
Ewan, Muncaster’s operations director, says the festival fits the family’s ethos: “The way you survive 800 years is you’re constantly reinventing. Ultimately, the way our family sees it is like we’re the figureheads, or the guardians, of the castle – making sure that we’re alive, living, agile and able to do things and be as accessible as possible for as great-a-number of people as possible.”
He says the castle is “a community project from the outset”: “It was built because a load of Scots were coming down and killing a load of people in the valley and stealing stuff. So the community came together and built this thing, our family just happened to be the figurehead.” That desire to move forward means, he says, they are “going to have weird gigs in the drawing room”.
His parents have been won over. “Now I think mum and dad love it as much as I do, if not more so. Dad in particular.” David Taylor adds: “Whatever Downton Abbey approach you might think of in an aristocratic family, it’s just not there.” Ewan’s father is known to put on marigolds for the recycling. “I’m on the bar, dad loves the bins. Dad’s obsessed with recycling,” Ewan says.
From Brighton club nights to Cumbria
The Krankenhaus journey began in Brighton, where Sea Power hosted Club Sea Power evenings. “Upstairs we had a ping pong table where people played around the world. There was a brass band. Sean Keaveney came down to DJ, and he said he’d always wanted to sing the theme tune to All Creatures Great and Small with his own lyrics,” Martin remembers.
Cosmic Bingo was also born there, with “psychedelic music playing” as numbers are drawn. Former snooker world champion Steve Davis has enjoyed it. “One night the journalist Simon Price did an event called The Price is Right, where he basically just came up with items and people had to guess how much it costs.”
Manager David Taylor describes the Cumbrian festival as the logical conclusion: “Let’s get out of the city into the countryside.”
A labour of love
Three of Sea Power’s members come from Cumbria, making the partnership natural. “It’s been a great meeting of minds… They’re not your traditional rock and roll band. They’ve always written about the countryside, about wildlife, about nature,” says David. Martin adds: “We’ve got older, our fans have got older, and I think over time [it’s become] less about sweaty clubs, more about getting outside.”
Festival-goers are taken into the landscape. “The one on the Friday is the traditional one where we take the local steam train and then do like a four-and-a-half mile walk back over the fell to the castle. It’s called the pilgrimage,” says Martin.
The surrounding area has benefited. The Grade II-listed Eskale Mill told the band it was the “biggest attendance they’d ever got”. Cleator Moor Brass Band plays at the castle and the train station. “We’ve tried to get Cumberland wrestling on there, some big competitions, but we haven’t succeeded, sadly,” Martin adds.
The 2011 book Do It For Your Mum described Sea Power’s dream festival: at Cesky Raj in Czechia, with Kate Bush performing, a talk on Scandinavian seafaring from Julian Cope, and Iggy Pop headlining with a flypast from Polish jets. David says of the band’s approach at Muncaster: “I don’t think they’ve ever said no.” Asked what more he would like to do, Martin answers: “Longer walks.”
The first Krankenhaus in 2019 was “a gamble” that saw 400 people travel to west Cumbria. Attendance is now 1,500, with 80 to 90 per cent returning each year. “We all know festivals that are 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 [capacity], where it’s just overwhelming. People love the fact this isn’t like that. And that’s our problem. How much bigger can we get?” says David. “We need a bigger barn!” adds Martin.
Krankenhaus Festival takes place at Muncaster Castle, Ravenglass, between August 28 and 30, 2026.
