Beatrix Potter
Hidden Country — Morning

Most people who visit Hill Top leave knowing which rooms appear in which books. This morning gives you something more lasting — an understanding of who Beatrix Potter actually was, what she built here, and why the Lake District looks the way it does partly because of decisions she made. That is the story your expert storyteller tells, in the landscape where it happened.

The Near Sawrey village walk is exclusive to the morning tour. You walk the lanes and past the farmland that appear throughout the Peter Rabbit illustrations — the view across Esthwaite Water is exactly what Potter saw from her bedroom window, and the garden at Hill Top is the garden in the books. Your expert storyteller walks you through it knowing the whole story, not just the charming version.

We begin at Wray Castle on the western shore of Windermere — the Victorian Gothic castle where the Potter family spent their summer holidays in 1882, and where sixteen-year-old Beatrix first fell in love with the Lake District. Most visitors to the Lakes have never been. From there we follow the route she would have known into the countryside around Near Sawrey, Hill Top and Hawkshead — through a landscape that has changed remarkably little since she painted it.

From Wray Castle we pass Esthwaite Water — the lake that appears again and again in her illustrations — and walk through the village of Near Sawrey to Hill Top, the farmhouse she bought in 1905 with the royalties from Peter Rabbit. We walk through the garden and past the buildings that appear directly in the books. Then through Hawkshead to the bookshop — formerly Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop and before that the solicitors office of William Heelis, the Hawkshead lawyer she married in 1913 and with whom she spent the rest of her life farming rather than writing.

From Hawkshead we drive up Hawkshead Hill to Tarn Hows — one of the most beautiful spots in the entire Lake District, now owned by the National Trust, donated by Beatrix Potter herself. We then descend through the Yewdale Valley past Yew Tree Farm — another Potter property, used as a filming location for the 2006 film Miss Potter — before returning to Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside by 1pm.

The Morning — What to Expect

Pickup from Windermere station at 9:00am. First stop is Wray Castle on the western shore of Windermere, where the Potter family spent the summer of 1882 and where a sixteen-year-old Beatrix fell in love with this landscape for the first time.

Arriving in Windermere · Arriving in Bowness · Arriving in Ambleside

From Wray Castle we drive south through the Hawkshead countryside — the hedgerows, the stone walls, the views that appear throughout the illustrations — arriving in Near Sawrey mid-morning for the village walk. Twenty minutes on foot through the lanes before entering Hill Top itself. Entry is included and pre-booked — no queue.

Your expert storyteller walks you through the farmhouse and garden, explaining the rooms that appear in specific books, the Herdwick sheep programme, the farm purchases and the National Trust bequest that shaped the Lake District permanently. Then Tarn Hows — donated by Potter to the National Trust in 1930 — before returning to Windermere at approximately 1:00pm.

Note: The Near Sawrey village walk is exclusive to this morning tour. The afternoon tour offers the Windermere Lake Cruise instead.