Hill Top, Ambleside

...recently we visited her house, Hill Top, which now belongs to the National Trust.

Where is it?
Hill Top is in a village called Near Sawrey which is situated about one mile to the west of Lake Windermere, about halfway along the lake and about two miles south of Hawkshead.

How do you get there?
When I first visited about 25 years ago I was staying in Ambleside and walked from there down to Bowness on Windermere ...
...car park for visitors to Hill Top.
It is also accessible by a variety of local Stagecoach buses and details can be found on their website.

When is it open?
It is open from the middle of February until the end of October each year, every day except Friday. It opens at 1100 and closes at 1530 until the middle of March; after that it opens at 1030 and closes at 1630 for the rest of the season.

How much does ... more

Beatrix Potter is one of our most famous children’s authors and whilst we were in The Lake District recently we visited her house, Hill Top, which now belongs to the National Trust.

Where is it?
Hill Top is in a village called Near Sawrey which is situated about one mile to the west of Lake Windermere, about halfway along the lake and about two miles south of Hawkshead.

How do you get there?
When I first visited about 25 years ago I was staying in Ambleside and walked from there down to Bowness on Windermere where I caught a ferry across Lake Windermere and then walked to Near Sawrey from there.
This time we were travelling by car and drove to Hawkshead and then travelled along the B5285 to Near Sawrey, where there is a free car park for visitors to Hill Top.
It is also accessible by a variety of local Stagecoach buses and details can be found on their website.

When is it open?
It is open from the middle of February until the end of October each year, every day except Friday. It opens at 1100 and closes at 1530 until the middle of March; after that it opens at 1030 and closes at 1630 for the rest of the season.

How much does it cost?
As I said it is owned by the National Trust so members can get in for free. The current charges for everyone else is as follows; adult £6.20, child £2.10 and family (2 adults and up to 3 children) £15.50, children under 5 go free. Admission to the garden and shop is free when the house itself is closed.

Accessibility
The path up to the house, the shop and the ground floor of the house are all accessible by wheelchairs and pushchairs however there is no lift to the upper floor of the house. Guides are available in large print or Braille for the visually impaired.

Background
Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top in 1905 and lived in the house until her marriage to William Heelis, a local solicitor, when they lived in a farm in the village. She then used Hill Top as a place where she could write her books. When she died she left a lot of property, including Hill Top, to the National Trust. She also left instructions as to how the house should be arranged after her death so that it could be viewed by a public that she realised would be interested in her.

What is there?
Well first of all we parked at the National Trust car park where we purchased our tickets which gave us a time to enter the house. It was about 15 minutes from the time of purchase so we didn’t have too long to wait. I assume that, in high season, this could be a longer wait.

We then walked a short way along the road to the entrance where we went into the gift shop until it was almost time to go into the house. The shop sold a selection of general National Trust gifts together with fridge magnets, books, cards, figurines, baby items, money boxes and more showing Beatrix Potter figures from Jemmima Puddleduck to Peter Rabbit and Mr Tod to Jeremy Fisher.

There are toilets to the side of the shop if you need to spend a penny.

We walked a few yards from the shop to the house where we waited until the guide at the front door called our entry time.

As we stood at the front of the house we could look over the garden gate to see the cottage garden beyond. It all looked so much like her illustrations that I half expected to see Jemmima Puddleduck looking over the gate at me.

The House
On the ground floor we had access to the two main rooms and could look through the door into the scullery. As we walked into the house we entered the main living area with the black leaded range and bodged rug – I remember my grandmother having both of these! There was a beautiful wooden dresser and sideboard in here as well.

The other downstairs room was laid out with a writing desk and one or two other bits and pieces. Every room had a window seat built into the window recess.

Upstairs there were four accessible rooms. One was Beatrix’s favourite working room with her favourite writing bureau in one corner of the room and a second one in the opposite corner. This room had huge paintings around the walls which, although seeming to be far too big for the room, seemed to work.

There was another working room upstairs with a keyboard, possibly a harpsichord, and another writing desk.

One of the rooms up here was obviously a bedroom with a lovely, if rather small, four poster bed. There were ropes through the base of the bed that could be tightened to make the mattress more solid to sleep on hence the expression ‘sleep tight’. You see I was listening to the guides!

In the final room there was a beautiful dolls’ house complete with some of the furniture illustrated in the book about the two bad mice. In the story the mice got into the dolls’ house and generally trashed it. If you look closely you can see the mice in the dolls’ house! There was also a glass case with various small items and toys.

Throughout the house there were many photographs of Beatrix Potter and her family and of course her husband. There were also sketches and paintings done by Beatrix, her brother and both of her parents.

There were four or five guides in the house all the while and they could answer any question put to them such was there knowledge of Beatrix Potter and her house. We did not feel rushed in our visit at all even though there were others waiting to come in.

Local Facilities
I thought that this deserved a mention as the local hostelry is The Tower Bank Arms which also features in at least one of Miss Potter’s books. Here you can get drinks, snacks and meals. This is, as far as I know, the only place in this small village where refreshments can be purchased.

Is it worth a visit?
I think so, yes. I have always loved Beatrix Potter’s books but even if you’re not a great fan the house is well worth a visit as it is in a lovely location and is perfectly preserved from the period 1906 – 1913 when Beatrix Potter was at her most prolific.

I did also notice that the guides were reading bits of the books to the children and showing them pictures and then relating them to items in the house – a good example of this was the dolls’ house where the guide showed two young visitors pictures in the book about the Two Bad Mice and asked them to spot the items in the dolls’ house. I can’t go into great detail about this as we didn’t have children with us, but the children that I saw certainly seemed to be fascinated by what the guides were telling them!
 

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