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In the heart of the Lake District, UK — Armitt Library, Wordsworth, Grasmere gingerbread, and more!

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By Sandra Hutchinson

In May, 2018 I made my first visit to northern England’s beautiful Lake District. Here’s my detailed story of that visit. In 2022, during the same weeks in May, I returned. Here are my highlights:

The “Bridge House” in Ambleside, Cumbria. Reminds me of the nursery rhyme “The old woman who lived in the shoe.”
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Levens Hall—stunning topiary in Cumbria, England

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By Sandra Hutchinson

Near Kendal, in Cumbria, on the southern edge of England’s Lake District, lies Levens Hall, with its extensive topiary garden, said to be the oldest and most extensive garden of its type in the world.

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Levens Hall itself is still a private residence, home to the Bagot family, but it and the surrounding gardens are open to the public (for a fee) from spring to fall. Photographs are not permitted inside the home, so unfortunately, I have none to share. The original home was built circa 1250 to 1300, and subsequent additions turned it into the sprawling manor house that visitors see today.

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A week in Beatrix Potter’s Lake District in England—a bit of heaven

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by Sandra Hutchinson
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Many people know of Beatrix Potter, the English writer and illustrator, because of her series of beloved children’s books about Peter Rabbit and his friends. 

But Miss Potter (1866-1943), later known as Mrs. Heelis, was far more than a genteel Victorian lady who penned stories about woodland creatures like bunnies and hedgehogs and painted charming watercolors of them wearing human clothing. She was a naturalist, a conservationist, a scientist (a mycologist, to be exact), a visionary merchandiser of her products, a farmer who raised Herdwick sheep, and a far-sighted land preservationist. 

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