WHEN you think of National Trust cafes what comes to mind? Scones and jam, delicious cakes, sandwiches perhaps?

In the Hawkshead area the cafes at Wray Castle, Claife Viewing Station and the outlet at Hill Top are all supplied by Joey’s plant-based bakery. There’s not a ham sandwich in sight.

Joe Beaumont, 46, owner of the eponymous Joey’s, is keen to make the distinction that the cafes aren’t plant based.

“We have listened to our customers over the years, we have always had cows’ milk as an option and this year we are selling dairy cheese too.”

The hospitality industry is one Joe literally fell into after an accident that changed, and nearly ended, his life.

“All my stories start with 2011 when I fell off a cliff,” he said.

The 40m fall from a Lake District crag left him in a wheelchair for more than two years; his initial chances of survival were slim.

“My identity, who I was, what I did was lost… I was an adrenaline junkie and my career too (he ran a tree surgery business). I was lost for a while. I couldn’t see any future. I was disabled, on benefits... then serendipity took hold,” he said.

“A friend who ran triathlon companies rang me up and said they need a coffee guy and we think you would be good for it. I looked on eBay and bought a coffee machine and it said Joey’s coffee on the side. It struck a chord with me. It started from there,” he said.

After watching YouTube videos he set up as a barista, building a shepherd’s hut from reclaimed wood.

At a Christmas market in Hawkshead, he was approached by the operations manager at Hill Top, the National Trust-owned farmhouse which inspired many of Beatrix Potter’s stories.

In 2018 he was granted a licence selling coffee and cake (from Ginger Bakers) from the gardens at Hill Top.

The following year he was approached to set up his first bricks and mortar café in Castle Mills, Kendal, but then the landlord asked him to leave. He said: “Later that year the café at Wray Castle came up for tender which I went for.”

At the same time he put in a successful bid for the National Trust’s Claife Viewing Station near Hawkshead ferry.

“They gifted me a castle which attracts 100,000 visitors a year,” he said. “I used the adrenaline junkie side of myself and focussed it on business. If something happens I can react very, very quickly.

"That’s one of my skills. A good friend said the breaking of me was the making of me.”