Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm

Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm

Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm:

When Beatrix Potter wrote to the four-year-old son of her old school governess, she drew a rabbit on the page. The child had been and was in need of cheering up.

Little did she know this doodle, in 1893, would change her own life forever.

The bunny would become known as Peter Rabbit, bringing her fame and fortune.

With the proceeds of her nursery tales, Potter bought Hill Top Farm plus thousands of acres of land in the Lake District.

Hill Top Farm is set in the village of Near Sawrey. It was an idyllic village in the 1920s and 30s.

The house at Hill Top is a small Lake District farmhouse dating back to the late seventeenth century.

Hill Top Farm is an extensive house that was the Potter family holiday home in 1903. The kitchen garden was painted several times by Beatrix Potter.

Everything at Hill Top is exactly as she left it, except the fireplace in the hall. Visitors were so disappointed that it looked nothing like that in her stories, a more traditional one was put in.

The main room at Hill Top, as in every traditional Lake District farmhouse, was the ‘fireroom’, which served as a kitchen, dining room, and hall, and from which stairs and other rooms in the house lead.

Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm

This delightful 17th-century home is also where Beatrix wrote many of her famous children’s stories containing characters such as Jemima Puddleduck, Tom Kitten, and Samuel Whiskers.

In fact, it was the setting for Mr. McGregor’s garden in The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, published in 1904.

Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm

Next to Hill Top Farm on the southern edge of Near Sawrey, stands the famous  Tower Bank Arms.

Take note of the wooden-framed porch and clock. It appeared as an illustration in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm

The interior of the pub oozes character, with Windsor chairs, flagged floor, and slate-topped tables.

The roaring open fire adds to the atmosphere.

Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm

Guests staying at the Tower Bank Arms would often ask about the old lady who walked past the pub almost every day.

When they were told it was Beatrix Potter, the children’s author, they could hardly believe it.

When Beatrix died in 1943, she left Hill Top to the National Trust on the condition that the house and contents are kept just as she had left it.

The black and white image below shows Beatrix by the front door of Hill Top and the colour image of how it is today.

Hill Top, is at Sawrey, near Hawkshead, and is 15 miles away from Lothlorien Holiday Cottage in Grange-over-Sands.

To make an enquiry to stay at Lothlorien click here.

 

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