Hill Top

One of the Lake Land homes of Beatrix Potter this is the home where she created a number of her stories and scenes from the books can be seen in her home. The gardens leading up to the house were quite lovely and next to them were flowering fruit trees with sheep grazing. Potter was known later in life for breeding sheep particulary the funny lucking herdwick sheep which have grey wool and white faces. In front of the house is a small vegetable garden reminiscent of the one Peter Rabbit was known to visit. Two rooms of the ground floor are open to visitors: the dining room and a sitting room. Both low ceilinged and surprisingly dark. On the first floor 4 more rooms are open showing Beatrix's bedroom as well as a number of her collections which included china (some showing her famous characters), small figurines of animals, art objects from asia, and a dollhouse and miniature versions of household items. It was interesting to see that although potter was a remarkable artist and garners international attention her own tastes were rather domestic even leaning towards the kitsch of her time. After visiting Hill top we made our way to the nearby town of Hawkeshead to the Beatrix Potter Gallery. Housed in the former office of her solicter husband, the gallery houses a number of her original watercolours and shows a selected few each year. We saw a number from "ginger and Pickles", "Squirrel Nutkin" and "Tom Kitten".