Beatrix Potter at Hill Top

Although I grew up to be an avid reader, I don’t have memories of being read to as a child. I’ve known of the story of Peter Rabbit, of course, but don’t remember it being read to me or even reading it to my own daughter. That being said, I visited the house of Beatrix Potter this weekend at Hill Top in Cumbria, and left with such an appreciation of that woman that I think the next biography I read will be about her.

Perhaps one of the more impressive things about her to me was her land management skills. She was an early Preservationist and very serious about preserving large estates, not breaking them up and tearing down old cottages to be replaced with cheap bungalows. The money she made from selling her books, she bought land and upon her death, left more than 4000 acres to be rented to tenant farmers in order to keep a certain breed of sheep on the Hill. Her books were almost autobiographical in that she used animals from the village, people, places, things in her own house and garden for inspiration.

Touring her house and hearing the excitement of children seeing her books come to life for them, was goose bumpy. They squealed when they saw the rhubarb in the garden; they knew about the two bad mice on the shelf. And the cat who fell through the floor? They found the board that was removed to rescue the cat and jumped for joy. For those children, her spirit was alive -- and so were her stories. And to think, her first book was turned down by the publisher and she chose to publish it herself.