Visiting Peter Rabbit In England’s Lake District

Author Beatrix Potter spent her summers here, the setting for her whimsical tales.

By Pam Hobbs

I was late for my appointment with Peter Rabbit, I tried to explain to a petrol station attendant on our way north. I asked if he knew a shortcut to Lake District National Park. Unsure what to make of me, he paused a bit. Then with a nod and a wink, he said he once had a six-foot rabbit called Harvey but couldn’t rightly remember Peter, so perhaps we’d best stay on the main highway.

That was early last year. By now I’m sure he knows all about Peter, since the cheeky bunny’s l00th birthday was commemorated with parties, events and exhibitions staged across Britain throughout 2002. Now a travelling exhibition has arrived at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, a little late for the centennial but still very exciting for Peter Rabbit fans.

England’s Lake District, where Peter is celebrated at all times, provided a perfect setting for Beatrix Potter’s whimsical children’s tales. A beauty spot on the face of northern England, this is a region of mountains, lakes and fells (hills), and farmlands neatly stitched together with ancient stone walls. It offers pleasure cruises and elegant country-house hotels, tiny hamlets and historic market towns you want to poke around in. Best of all for Potter enthusiasts, this glorious landscape offers reminders of Peter and pals at almost every turn in every country lane.

It all began in September 1893 when the author wrote to her former nanny’s five-year-old son, Noel Moore. “I don’t know what to write to you,” she informed the ailing lad, “so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names are Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.” In the tale, illustrated by Potter, Peter ignores his mother’s warnings and scampers off to a garden owned by Mr. McGregor, a farmer who has already cooked Peter’s father in a pie. There Peter feasts on lettuces, broad beans and radishes, gets tangled up in a gooseberry net, and barely escapes the dreaded Mr. McGregor before returning home without his shoes or blue jacket with brass buttons.

To date, the 23 children’s books that evolved from this letter have been translated into 20 languages and sold 80 million copies. Little wonder then that the Lake District receives 12 million visitors a year, many of them walking around with books in hand, matching the illustrations with real-life scenes.

Sites associated with the tales are so popular that “Hill Top,” a 17th-century farm at Near Sawrey where Potter lived and worked, is closed two days a week to recover from its legions of visitors. In neighboring Hawkshead, the Beatrix Potter Gallery receives so many visitors it has timed admissions. Obviously these two sites are a must, but I suggest you also wander the countryside on the lookout for rabbits and frogs and farm cats such as those featured in the little white books. Let your imagination fly and you may see them as the author did, dressed in country-style clothes and performing human chores.

Beatrix Potter was introduced to the Lake District in the early 1900s when her parents rented summer homes here. Her favorite spot was Sawrey, a hamlet so small we drove through without knowing it. Beatrix stayed here often in a summer rental she first knew as Lakeland, which later became Ees Wyke Country House Hotel. Most of today’s guests, need I add, are here to explore the haunts of Potter’s characters.

Our first stop was in the holiday town of Bowness on a crowded Sunday afternoon. In a former laundry, “The World of Beatrix Potter” presents a walk-through exhibition of three-dimensional scenes so realistic you can almost see Peter’s whiskers twitching. They’re all here: Jemima Puddle-Duck wearing her blue bonnet and fringed shawl, looking for a place to nest; Mr. Jeremy Fisher, “who lived in a damp house amongst the butter cups at the end of a pond . . .”; two jaunty little pigs from The Tale of Pigling Bland; the hard-working hedgehog washerwoman Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

A car ferry from Bowness took us across Lake Windermere to its west shore, into landscapes immortalized by some of England’s best-loved artists and poets. This is what we expect of Peter Rabbit’s playground: narrow winding roads are overhung by ancient trees; gentle hills etched in wildflowers are dotted with plump sheep. We pass the occasional shepherd with his trusty dog, and rosy-cheeked hikers who wave cheerily as we drive on by. Soon, small unobtrusive signs point us to Hill Top, where Potter lived surrounded by her animal friends.
Hill Top’s prolific gardens appear often in the books. A crazy-paved footpath leads us from the road, cutting through tousle-headed azaleas, majestic hollyhocks, lilies, rock plants, roses and fruit trees haphazardly interspersed with vegetables to give the informal cottage-garden ambience Potter so loved. All that’s missing today is Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit running along the path with her “nude” kittens, anxious to have them out of the way before her friends arrive for tea.

Were you to tell me the author lived here still I would believe you. Her illustrations are so true to life that I can readily see a cat wearing a blue print dress sweeping the front porch, Jemima nesting in the Canterbury bells, and Peter hopping about in the cabbage patch.

At Potter’s request, the property is exactly as it was when she lived here. Her clogs are on the hearth, her spinning wheel and rocking chair nearby. Potted geraniums flourish on window seats, horse brasses glint from the wooden mantel. Almost all of the nooks, crannies and furnishings are replicated in watercolors in one or more of Potter’s tales. To mention just a few: the wooden sentry-box of a porch with cabbage-sized pink roses clinging to it is featured in The Tale of Tom Kitten; an antique dresser is readily recognized from The Tale of Samuel Whiskers; the long case clock appears in The Tailor of Gloucester.

It is easy to visualize Potter here, sketching her farm animals and wildlife friends outdoors, or writing at her 18th-century bureau in the New Room. Her Treasure Room contains mementoes the author chose to have on display – a miniature china tea set, a fully furnished doll’s house and bronzed characters from her books. Personal memorabilia include bracelets and pendants, assorted l9th-century chinaware, bits and bobs she used in her illustrations.
Across the road from Hill Top, you can see the now privately-owned white house which was Potter’s second farm purchase. Following her marriage, she and her husband lived there for some 30 years, keeping Hill Top as a place where she could work and entertain her literary friends.

After her marriage, Potter wrote only four more in the series of little white books. One, The Tale of Johnny Town Mouse, is set in Hawkshead, established in the 9th century and a market town since the 12th. Pounded by torrential rain, we arrived in this toy-like community where quaint cobbled alleys are lined with bow-windowed buildings, lopsided and stooped with old age. Signs advertise the sale of maggots for fishermen; shops specialize in hiking and fishing gear. A plaque on the 16th-century school tells us poet William Wordsworth was a student here for eight years from 1779.

Beatrix’s husband, William Heelis, used to practise law in Hawkshead’s historic offices which now house the Beatrix Potter Gallery. Here you can see watercolors submitted with the manuscripts, and realize Potter’s tremendous dedication to detail. The same can be said of the simple black-and-white sketches illustrating the original privately published Peter Rabbit book. Displays include the letter to young Noel Moore that started it all, as well as correspondence from the author in her new role as Mrs. Heelis, sheep farmer.

Potter was also deeply involved in the preservation of Lake District farmlands. Thanks to the phenomenal success of Peter Rabbit and pals, she was able to buy a total of 15 area farms for conservation, ending up with 4,000 acres of prime land during her lifetime. She also put her celebrity to use as a National Trust fundraiser, enabling this organization to purchase additional land for conservation. Sixty years after her death, her generosity continues as proceeds from property admissions, book and souvenir sales continue to pour into National Trust coffers. As a result, regional landscapes have remained virtually unchanged in a hundred years.
We saw the area at its loveliest a few days later when we set off for London at that magical time of morning soon after dawn. Roadside flowers were heavy with dew and sheep huddled cosily against the cool stone walls. I found myself wondering why Potter never drew sheep dressed in striped woolly jumpers and knitted trousers. Rabbits were everywhere, breakfasting on blackberries beneath roadside hedges, playing hide-and-seek, dashing in front of our car on some urgent errand, or perhaps a dare. The last one wore a shrunken blue jacket with huge brass buttons. And you know something? He didn’t look at all out of place. n