Children's Corner at the Beatrix Potter Gallery

Did you know that at the Beatrix Potter Gallery we have a nice cosy Children's Corner - with books and activities suitable for children of different ages?

We've been busy over the Winter making sure there are nice new books that reflect our theme for this year; "On holiday with Beatrix Potter."

We have a Maisy Goes on Holiday Story Sack - aimed at our younger visitors. If you don't know what a 'Story Sack' is - it's literally a story book in a sack (or in this case a lovely 'Herdy' Bag). The idea is that an adult reads the main story to the child and then they use the 'props' in the bag to re-enact or talk about the story. There is usually a more factual book included and a game to play also.

For younger children we also have a beautiful Beatrix Potter themed frieze with magnetic characters and objects on - creating stories in this way certainly fires the children's imaginations.

As our theme is 'Holidays' this year - we also have a wee suitcase that the children can pack and unpack with the kind of things they'd take on a seaside holiday!

One of our very special new exhibits this year in the Beatrix Potter Gallery, is the Natural History Cabinet; full of specimens that Beatrix and her brother, Bertram, collected. You can see butterflies, moths, beetles, dragonflies, but also shells, rocks and fossils. This cabinet has been very kindly loaned to us by the Beatrix Potter Society.

We've taken the theme of Natural History for the older children's books, including the wonderful true story of Mary Anning, a little girl who found a very important fossil.

Beatrix loved to scramble about looking for fossils while on holiday and she wrote in her journal about a conversation with an elderly gentleman that she met - which shows her magpie like collecting manner!

"He seems to think it positively improper to collect fossils from all over the country, but I do not feel under obligation to confine my attention to a particular formation [...]. I beg to state I intend to pick up everything I find which is not too heavy."

And of course, after all,  we are the Beatrix Potter Gallery and we shall have Storytellers in the Gallery reading Beatrix's lovely stories to both children and adults alike! So if you'd love to hear The Tale of Peter Rabbit read aloud  - please check with us when our storytellers will be in.

Favourite flora, fauna and farms

Hill Top is very busy at this time of year so we thought we'd chill out by looking at some of Beatrix's (and our) favourite things.

Harebells were one of Beatrix's favourite flowers.  These might well be the descendants of those Beatrix and William enjoyed on walks up to Moss Eccles tarn. 

 Harebells on track to Moss Eccles tarn

Rabbits have to get a mention!  Beatrix had a Belgian rabbit called 'Bounce', the original 'Benjamin Bunny'.  I'm not sure she would have been so pleased to see these rabbits coming through the fence into the orchard and eyeing up the vegetable garden.  The old apple tree may well have been a youngster when Beatrix was around.

Can you spot the rabbits?

Dogs were very much part of Beatrix's life - as a girl she had a spaniel, Spot, and later pictures show her with a sheepdog, Kep, and Pekinese.  John Joiner, the terrier, is one of my favourite characters.  Nowadays Sam, the working cocker spaniel, keeps us company in the ticket office (see Dog on the Blog- although some visitors today looked in his cage and mistook him for a bear!  I think they were joking.

Sam off duty in Lake Windermere

In Beatrix's day people studied butterflies by catching them and pinning them in trays.  Now we can snap them with a camera.  This Peacock butterfly is basking in the sun on the buddliea outside the ticket office at Hill Top.

The Lake District is the amazing place it is today because of Beatrix's passion for buying farms.  Her favourite would always be Hill Top.  Facing south - ish, the front is bathed in sunshine (when it isn't raining).  I can imagine her looking out of the window in the New Room and searching for inspiration in the view over the village and up the track to Moss Eccles.

 

Yew Tree Farm near Coniston was another of the 17 farms Beatrix bought. This was where the film Miss Potter was filmed.  Beatrix introduced Belted Galloway cattle from Scotland.  They're a slow maturing breed which does well on the poor grazing of the Lakeland fells and produces excellent meat - which you can buy from Yew Tree Farm.  Seeing them in the distance someone once commented that it was good to see we were breeding pandas in the Lake District.  Hmmm...

Yew Tree Farm and pandas?

Beatrix was a great champion (and a judge) of Herdwick sheep.  The lambs start off black and turn paler with age but the faces are always white.

Newly shorn - the red is just a mark!

With the important exception of the rather foolish Jemima Puddleduck, Beatrix didn't seem to have as much connection with birds as other animals.  Neither did she have to worry about computers!

We would rather be chatting to visitors than checking our emails so thought we'd recruit a new member of staff!  Meet Orinoco.

Not more emails!

Post and photos by Sue from the Visitor Services Team.