Other in Lancashire

Lake Windermere is the largest natural lake in England, a ribbon of water approximately eighteen kilometres long set in the heart of the Lake District National Park between wooded hillsides and the lower fells that rise on both shores. It is the most visited lake in the district and the centre of much of the tourism that makes the Lake District the most visited national park in Britain, its combination of accessible scenery, historic associations, water sports facilities and the appealing towns and villages along its shores creating a destination of extraordinary popularity. The western shore of the lake, wilder and more wooded than the eastern shore where the main towns of Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside are concentrated, provides some of the most beautiful lakeshore scenery in Cumbria and is accessible via the Windermere ferry that crosses between Bowness and Far Sawrey. The National Trust estate of Claife Heights above the western shore offers excellent walking with views across the lake to the Langdale Pikes and the central fells, and Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's farmhouse at Near Sawrey, is one of the most visited National Trust properties in England. The lake has strong literary associations with the Romantic tradition. Wordsworth walked extensively in the surrounding countryside and the Lake District's scenery was the primary inspiration for his greatest poetry. John Ruskin lived at Brantwood above Coniston Water, within sight of Windermere's southern reaches, and Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons was inspired by the landscape of Windermere and Coniston, giving the lake a place in the imaginative geography of generations of children. The Windermere Steamers, operating scheduled services on the lake since the Victorian period, provide a relaxing way to experience the changing character of the lake and connect the main lakeside villages without a car.

Lytham Hall is a handsome Georgian country house standing within a parkland setting of over seventy acres at the heart of Lytham St Annes in Lancashire. Built in the mid-eighteenth century for the Clifton family, local landowners who shaped the development of the town for several hundred years, the hall represents one of the finest examples of Georgian domestic architecture in the northwest of England. The house was designed with the elegant proportions and restrained decorative vocabulary characteristic of the Palladian style that dominated British country house architecture in the mid-eighteenth century. The symmetrical stone facade, sash windows and carefully balanced interior rooms reflect the taste and cultural aspirations of the prosperous landed gentry who commissioned such buildings. Thomas Clifton, who inherited the estate in the 1740s, invested substantially in the house and grounds, establishing the parkland landscape that still frames the building today. The Clifton family's influence on the wider development of Lytham was considerable. As the major landowners in the area they controlled development, managed the sea defences and shaped the character of the town through their estate management decisions across several generations. The estate also included Lytham Windmill, the historic church of St Cuthbert and substantial agricultural holdings across the Fylde Plain. Following the decline of the Clifton family's fortunes in the twentieth century the hall was eventually acquired by British Gas and used as offices for several decades, a period during which the building suffered considerable neglect. It was purchased by a charitable trust in 2008 and has since been the subject of a sustained programme of restoration and conservation work funded through grants, community fundraising and heritage organisations. Today the hall hosts regular guided tours, exhibitions and community events that tell the story of the house and its owners. The parkland and woodland surrounding the building are open for walking throughout the year, and the seasonal events programme includes themed tours, craft fairs and heritage activities that make Lytham Hall an active and engaging community asset as well as a significant historic building.

Lytham Windmill stands on the Green at the heart of Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, one of the most recognisable landmarks on the Fylde Coast and a symbol of the town's maritime and agricultural heritage. The mill was built in 1805 and worked as a grain mill for several decades before ceasing commercial operations in 1922, and its distinctive white cylindrical tower has been carefully preserved as an important piece of local industrial history. The mill is a tower mill design, the most common type of windmill in Lancashire, with a rotating cap housing the sails that could be turned into the prevailing wind regardless of its direction. At its operational peak the mill used the strong westerly winds blowing off the Irish Sea to drive its millstones, grinding wheat and other grains into flour for the local community. The surrounding area of Lytham is flat agricultural land, characteristic of the Fylde Plain, and the mill originally dominated the skyline in a way that is hard to appreciate now that the town has grown around it. Today the mill houses a small museum telling the story of the building and its role in the agricultural and maritime history of Lytham. The green setting and the views across the Ribble Estuary from the surrounding area help place the mill within its original landscape context. Lytham Green itself is one of the most pleasant open spaces on the Lancashire coast, a broad strip of grass along the estuary shore that is popular with walkers and kite flyers. The town of Lytham is a genteel and well-preserved Victorian resort town with an attractive town centre, independent shops and a character distinctly different from the more brash resort of Blackpool a few kilometres to the north. Lytham Hall, a fine Georgian country house visible from the town, and the yacht clubs and sailing facilities along the estuary reflect the genteel character of the place that attracted prosperous Victorian and Edwardian families to settle here. The surrounding area also includes the famous Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club, one of the venues for The Open Championship.

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.

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.