Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s Garden, Lake District

Hill Top garden, Beatrix Potter, Lake District

The garden at Hill Top isn’t huge and I suspect that the vegetable garden hasn’t changed much over the years, although there are some decorations in it for children to spot. I think that Beatrix used her garden to illustrate some of her books, but most of my Beatrix Potter books had to be put into the paper/cardboard recycling after they were badly water damaged a few years ago, so I can’t compare them with my photos. If you click this link you will see some photos of the garden and house. As you can see from the photo I took back in early September the garden plants to the side of the house were more or less over.

I love the gate below which leads to the walled vegetable garden.

Hill Top , gate to garden, Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Lake District

 

Hill Top garden, Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Lake District, Cumbria

The two photos below were taken from the path which leads out of the property, going towards the shop. So you can have a sit down on one of the benches, if you are that way inclined.

Hill Top, garden, Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Cumbria, Lake District

These give you a bit of an idea of the surrounding area but if you click on the National Trust link near the beginning of this post you’ll get more of an idea of what the neighbouring houses look like.

Hill Top garden, National Trust, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District

 

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home – part 2

So here we are upstairs at Hill Top and as you can see this four poster bed is very ancient looking.

Hill Top,bedroom, Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Cumbria, Lake District

There’s also a fireplace in the room so it could be quite cosy, despite the harsh winters in this rural area of northern England.

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter,bedroom fireplace, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

Below there’s what looks like a Tudor chest to match the bed and lovely drawings of birds on a William Morris wallpaper design.

bird paintings , Hill Top, Cumbria, Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Lake District

Hill Top is full of pretty things, Beatrix was a collector although it’s fair to say that it was the fashion to have lots of ‘stuff’ on show. I particularly love that perfect miniature chest of drawers in the photo below.

, Hill Top chair, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

Another bedroom below.

Hill Top bedroom,chest, paintings, Cumbria, National Trust, Lake District, Beatrix Potter

I now can’t remember which room the photo below was taken in! That’s just about all of the photos that I took, apart from some photos of the things in Beatrix’s display cabinets. There are so many reflections on the glass though, I’ll have to see if I can get rid of them.

by mantelpiece,  Beatrix Potter, National Trust, Cumbria, Lake District, Hill Top

The house isn’t large, what is open to the public anyway, but as there were only two people in it, plus a couple of servants maybe, it’s a nice size for comfort. We visited outside the school holidays and it was very busy, we booked up ahead and also reserved a parking space, it would have been a bit of a nightmare if we hadn’t I think. The car park is about 200 metres away from the house, so that’s a short walk to it, past a few houses which are right by Hill Top, I can’t help thinking that the people who have those houses must at times be cursing the popularity of this National Trust property.

Hill Top information boards, Beatrix Potter

I have a few photos of the garden and surrounding countryside, but I’ll leave those for another time.

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home

While we were in the Lake District last month we visited Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home. We tried to visit it about ten years ago but didn’t realise that it doesn’t open on Fridays for some reason – and guess who visited it on a Friday! It was very busy as you can see from the photo below. Beatrix gifted the house to the National Trust, along with a lot of land when she died.

aHill Top, Beatrix Potter, Lake District

As soon as you get through that doorway you are in the room in the photos below. These china plates were painted by Beatrix’s father, you can see where she got her talent from.

Hill Top first room, Cumbria, Beatrix Potter

This fireplace/range is on the opposite wall from the photo above. As you can see the ceiling has wallpaper on it too. The door to the right of the range is what we in Scotland call a press, a built in cupboard.

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter, Lake District, Cumbria, National Trust

Another cupboard below.

Hill Top, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

The next room opens off the first room and strangely it has a door knocker on it, as if it was a front door.

cupboard Door, Hill Top, Cumbria, National Trust, Beatrix Potter, Lake District

Beatrix loved collecting pretty things, she certainly enjoyed what was the first home of her own as her parents objected to her having a life of her own. When her books became so popular she was well able to buy this house outright, at last she could do what she wanted. You can even look at what she had inside her little desk.

Corner cupboard, Hill Top, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

 

Fireplace Hill Top, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

Then we went back into the first rooom again to go up the stairs. I must say that from the photos you don’t get the impression of how dim the light is in this room, in fact the photo that I took of the dresser to the right of the clock didn’t come out at all, annoyingly. Beatrix used some of her own furniture in her illustrations.

grandfather clock, Hill Top, Beatrix Potter, Cumbria, Lake District, National Trust

I’ll do another blogpost about the rooms upstairs.

Hill Top – Beatrix Potter’s Home

I’ve always wanted to visit Beatrix Potter’s home Hill Top, in the Lake District. So imagine my disappointment when we drove into the car park and read a notice which said it was closed on Fridays – yes, it was Friday. I can’t really complain because it does have a key at the bottom of the National Trust book which makes it clear that it’s closed on Friday – but why is it? It’s such a popular place, we weren’t the only people who were hoping to get in that afternoon. Well I suppose we’ll go back another time. Of course, the NT shop WAS open! Anyway this is a photo of Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home.

Hill Top House

It’s quite a modest looking house, when you consider how rich she must have been, she was often mistaken for a tramp by visitors because she really wasn’t bothered what she looked like. When my mother-in-law was in the Brownies in the late 1920s her pack camped near this area on Potter land and Beatrix met them and gave them signed copies of her books.

Hill Top farmland 1

These photos look quite faded but that is how it looked, it was a bit misty and the grass looked almost yellow as it had recently been covered with loads of snow.

Hill Top farmland 2

The house above is the nearest one to Hill Top and this is the view which Beatrix would have from the front of her house.

a garden gate Hill Top

This teeny bit of walled garden is to the left hand side of Hill Top. It looks like the original Mr McGregor’s garden, much smaller than I had imagined it to be.

Below is the view you get looking to the left of the gate.

Hill Top garden left

And below is the view of the right hand side of the garden.

Hill Top garden right

And look who else was there, just on the other side of the wall there were some descendants of Peter Rabbit, not at all bothered about us, too busy munching.

rabbits at Hill Top

Some sheep were in the same part of the garden, complete with their lambs. It seems to me that being a ewe is quite a hard life, lambs are fairly aggressive, nothing was going to stop them from getting their milk.

sheep suckling

So we’ll have to go back and try again because I want to see the interior as the furniture which features in the book illustrations is still in the house.

We bought fudge and raspberry curd at the shop. I had only eaten lemon curd before but I recommend the raspberry curd – delicious.