There are many historic houses and gardens within a few miles of Hawkrigg Farm, including many National Trust properties.

Wray Castle is a mock-Gothic castle sitting on the shores of lake Windermere with turrets, towers and informal grounds. With expansive views and connections with Beatrix Potter who used to stay there, it’s a unique and different experience. Kids can dress up in medieval garb and run from room to room. Why not arrive by boat on Windermere Lake Cruises. 

Brantwood on the shores of Coniston Water was home to painter, philanthropist and social thinker John Ruskin for the last 28 years of his life from 1872 to 1900. 

The Ruskin Museum in the village of Coniston has more about the great man, as well as exhibits on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ author Arthur Ransome and Donald Campbell’s world water speed records.

One of the most famous is Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home in picturesque Near Sawrey where she lived from 1896. A number of sites in the village were used in her books such as The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Fairy Caravan, The Pie and the Patty Pan and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

Her original paintings are housed at the Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead.

Poet William Wordsworth’s newly restored house, Allan Bank, opened to the public for the first time in 2012. It’s a uniquely relaxed property on the banks of Grasmere, home not only to Wordsworth but also National Trust founder Canon Rawnsley.

On the opposite shore of Grasmere is Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s first family home, an immaculately preserved example of a 19th Century cottage with stone floors, wood paneling and open fires.

Townend in Troutbeck is a traditional Cumbrian farmhouse, little changed in over the 400 years.

Lovers of gardens will enjoy Holehird Gardens, the Lakeland Horticultural Garden near Windermere in its superb Lakeland setting.

When the architect MH Baillie Scott built a holiday home overlooking Windermere for his client Sir Edward Holt he created Blackwell, a masterpiece of twentieth-century design; a perfect example of the Arts & Crafts Movement.