Historic Places in Lancashire

Wray Castle stands on the western shore of Lake Windermere in the Lake District National Park, its Gothic Revival towers and battlements rising from a wooded promontory above the lake to create one of the most picturesque and unexpected architectural features on England's largest lake. Built between 1840 and 1845 for retired surgeon James Dawson and his wife Margaret, the castle was designed in the medieval Gothic style that was fashionable among wealthy Victorians who wished to give their new country houses the romantic associations of genuine antiquity, even though the building was entirely domestic in purpose and never intended for any defensive function. The architectural result is a playful and thoroughly enjoyable Victorian fantasy of what a medieval castle might look like, with towers, turrets, arrow slits and battlements applied to a building whose internal arrangements reflected the practical requirements of a comfortable nineteenth-century country house. The expense involved in creating this elaborate Gothic confection was considerable, and Margaret Dawson is reported to have been horrified by the final cost when the bills arrived. Her husband's response, that he was glad she had not known the total in advance, has a quality of resigned domesticity that makes the story one of the more humanising footnotes in Victorian architectural history. The castle has a particular significance in the life of Beatrix Potter, whose family rented it for summer holidays in the 1880s. It was during these visits that the young Beatrix developed her love of the Lake District landscape, the natural history of the area and the character of its farming communities, all of which fed directly into the stories and illustrations she began creating and which eventually produced Peter Rabbit and the books that followed. The connection is celebrated in the visitor interpretation at the castle, now managed by the National Trust. The grounds around the castle slope down to the lake shore and include woodland walks and lakeside access that provide excellent views across Windermere to the eastern fells. Boat trips on the lake can be combined with a visit to the castle, and the nearby village of Hawkshead and Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's own farmhouse, are within easy reach.

Rydal Mount in Cumbria was the home of the poet William Wordsworth for the last 37 years of his life, from 1813 until his death in 1850, and represents the most sustained domestic setting in the life of one of the greatest English poets. The house sits above the small lake of Rydal Water in a landscape of spectacular beauty that directly fed Wordsworth's imagination throughout the long final chapter of his writing life, and the garden he designed and tended here with considerable personal involvement preserves his horticultural vision almost exactly as he left it. The house itself is a comfortable sixteenth-century farmhouse extended in the eighteenth century that Wordsworth rented throughout his residence, never owning it outright. By the time he moved here he was already famous and the Lake District was well established as a destination for literary pilgrims who wished to see the landscapes that had inspired his poetry. The house attracted a constant stream of distinguished visitors throughout the Wordsworth years, including Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Mary Shelley and Queen Adelaide, who visited in 1840. The garden at Rydal Mount reflects Wordsworth's particular vision of the relationship between nature and cultivation, a vision that rejected the formal or baroque style in favour of something that appeared to grow naturally from the landscape while actually being carefully planned and maintained. The terraced garden descends the hillside in a series of informal levels, with walks through trees and shrubbery designed to reveal successive views across the valley rather than presenting a single designed prospect. The terracing and the upper woodland area above the house are substantially as Wordsworth left them. Inside the house, which remains in the ownership of Wordsworth's descendants, the rooms preserve an atmosphere of lived-in domesticity rather than the formal museum quality of many literary houses. The study where Wordsworth worked, the drawing room where family and guests gathered and the bedrooms are furnished with period pieces including some that belonged to the Wordsworth family. The surrounding Lake District landscape, Rydal Water below and the fell path that Wordsworth walked daily to dictate his poetry to his sister Dorothy and wife Mary while composing out of doors, can be explored through the public footpaths that thread through the valley.