We were based at Bowness-on-Windermere, sitting cheek-by-jowl with the town of Windermere on the eastern side of the lake; although their mutual growth has caused them to become one large settlement , the towns are distinct is distinct as the two still have distinguishable town centres.
A Victorian neo-gothic building the house was built in 1840 for a retir ed Liverpudlian surgeon, James Dawson, who built it along with the neighbouring Wray Church using his wife's fortune. Given that the Dawsons had no children, it would seem a slight folly to build such a large home for retirement, but build they did; their "architect" was actually an accountant with an interest in architecture - and it shows in the results!
After Dawson's death in 1875 the estate was inherited by his nephew, Edward Preston Rawnsley. In 1877 Edward's cousin, Hardwicke Rawnsley, took up the appointment of vicar of Wray Church. To protect the countryside from damaging development, Hardwicke Rawnsley, building on an idea propounded by Ruskin, conceived of a National Trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation.
The house has an association with another key player in the National Trust, Beatrix Potter, who spent a summer holiday there with her family when she was 16 in 1882. She bought a small farm nearby, Hill Top, in 1905 with royalties from her first book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit". The house has had many tenants since the National Trust took ownership after buying it for a song in 1929, including a Youth Hostel and the Merchant Navy.
We followed a wonderfully instructive tour of the building led by one of the enthusiastic National Trust volunteers with a wander around the property at our own pace. It is really nice to be in a property that the National Trust is not "precious" about, as they encourage you to sit down, open doors, and touch things; during the winter months, they encourage children's activities too.