In the Hawkshead area of Cumbria are significant places associated with the writer, artist and conservationist, Beatrix Potter. Bought in 1905 by Beatrix Potter as part investment, part holiday home, Hill Top is a small, 17th-century farmhouse of roughcast stone and a slate roof typical of Lakeland vernacular architecture. It was the royalties from The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other early works that enabled Potter, at nearly forty, to escape her parents’ house in London and buy Hill Top. Much of the interior of the house appears in Potter’s illustrations including the stone-flagged floor of the entrance hall and the 18th-century stair-rail and balusters, all of which feature in The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. Potter planned and executed the layout of Hill Top’s garden; she illustrated it with particular vividness in the Tale of Tom Kitten and this book is now used by today’s gardeners to inform their work in the garden. The Beatrix Potter Gallery, formerly the office of Potter’s husband William Heelis in the village of Hawkshead, is a charming 17th-century house which now shows the National Trust’s collection of Beatrix Potter’s artwork.
A collection of Beatrix Potter's sketches and watercolours; photographs of the Heelis and Potter families; and a refurnished 19th century solicitor's office (with some of the original desks and furnishings used by William Heelis).
A collection of 19th century landscapes and views; a mixed collection of furniture (17th - 19th century); an important collection of Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) memorablilia, including her hat, her clogs, photographs and a small collection of books (241 in all; 62 pre-1801) assembled by her.
