Photo Essay: Beatrix Potter’s magical world

Beatrix Potter was the wonderful lady, who introduced millions of children around the world to a magical world filled with naughty happy squirrels, workaholic porcupines, solemn foxes, curious frogs, etc., all set in a make believe world set in the Lake District in the far north of England. We had a chance to visit her exhibition. Here’s a photo essay on the exhibition of her work in Lake District, only a few photographs are included here, the full set is shown here in higher resolutions.
 
Here’s the entrance to the attraction. It's a bit smaller than what I expected, but the building is made out of Lake stone, very traditional indeed.

On reaching the landing, you find yourself faced with a statue of Beatrix Potter surrounded by some of her wonderful characters. And she is quite an attractive lady :)

There was a wonderful clock on the top. This entire clock moved, chirruped, sang and danced, bowed and tweeted and and and on the quarter. The only complaint I had was that it was placed a bit too far off and too high on the wall to really enable people to look at it properly. Still, it's a lovely thing. So you queue up and buy your tickets, and then enter into a small film theatre where a short 5 minute film is shown, which talks about the life of Beatrix Potter, her characters, how she got the inspiration, etc. Then you enter the proper exhibition. It is a winding pathway, every display relates to one of her stories. Each display has an LCD screen which shows the story and how the diorama pertains to the story. I was totally entranced by the displays. Obviously not a shade to compare with Walt Disney’s wonderful creations, but in its lovely British understated manner, it was beautiful. Obviously one needs a simple mind like mine :). Here follows some of the characters that I found interesting.

Mother Goose

A tiny kitchen with two rabbits peering through the window.

Mother Pig with her piglets.

Squirrels in the forest. Squirrel Nutkin I presume.

Its a magical world out there. My little girl peering in wonderment and fascination at one of the displays positioned just in the right height for her to see. 


Boating down the river

And the frog meets Mr. Turtle.

A model of Beatrix Potter’s farm, where she wrote most of her stories. This room had three very large screens showing the landscape, the stories, and computerised displays of the natural world. Here’s crabby old Mr. McGregor in his garden and Peter Rabbit on the left. It was a slice of heaven, something that makes you forget the outside world and takes you back to your childhood when squirrels could be naughty and frogs go on magical wonderful journeys. A place highly recommended and if you can, take your child (real, imaginary or inner) with you.

Photos: Lake District #13 Bridge House

The Bridge House at Ambleside is one of the cutest stone houses that I have seen (here is the slideshow). I love this house because it was built over the stock beck river to escape the Land Tax. Now that tickles my libertarian funny bone.

Photos: Lake District #12 Windermere Boat Ride

On the day we were heading back, we decided to check out on a lake ride on Windermere. It wasn't a good day, it was cold, it was raining and it was quite windy indeed. Still, here are the photographs and the slide show with more pics in higher resolution.

Princess of the Lake, that’s the name of the boat we will be taking.

Overcast day

Seagulls waiting on a pier post

row boats

lovely looking stone wall.

two more seagulls with beady looking eyes.

view of the mountains

hidden house

a stony shore

the flag flying high.

a stony outcrop heaving with birds

the speed limit

shining glinting water

Photos: Lake District #11 Galava Fort

This was so interesting and while there wasn't much to see, I could still listen to the stones of the Galava Fort talk to me. Here’s another good overview site with some better pictures. My pictures are here on the slideshow.

Here’s the signage

This is how the main gate looked like.

The headquarters building

The CO’s house

The store room. So how does it look like now?

Just some sunken trenches.

And some foundations.

The granary foundations.

This is the view which the legionnaires kept a beady eye out on. This is where the Scottish brigands came down to loot and pillage. I stood on the small ladder and I could imagine myself as a roman legionnaire, standing here in the cold, wind and rain. Peering into the distance, fingering my pilium. Thinking back about my wife and daughter back home. Feeling quite miserable about it all.

There was a tower as well.

This is all that is left of that majestic tower, just a few sunken trenches. All that is left of the massive imposing Roman Galava Fort of nearly 2 millennia ago.