Down Northumberland Street, Newcastle: Beatrix Potter Exhibit

The annual Beatrix Potter exhibit is now up and celebrating 150 years of Beatrix Potter...

 The holly tree near the bus stop...

 Through a shop window near Newcastle University; a children's literature exhibit... And then on Northumberland Street for the annual Christmas Beatrix Potter exhibit...

 The roots of the fir tree...

 Peter Rabbit...

 

 Lucy visits Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

 Jemima Puddle-Duck sitting on her nest, courtesy of the "foxy gentleman."

 Mr. Jeremy Fisher on the lily-pad...

 "IN the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets—when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta—there lived a tailor in Gloucester."

 "There were roses and pansies upon the facings of the coat; and the waistcoat was worked with poppies and corn-flowers."

"The stitches of those buttonholes were so small—so small—they looked as if they had been made by little mice!"


An "Uilleann" piper on Northumberland Street tonight (I tossed a few coins in for you).

Enduring Cottages from the World of Mother Goose, Lake District, Chapter II

From Wordsworth's "Dove cottage" to Beatrix Potter's "Hill Top Farm," Saturday was an enchanting walk through the haunts of English literature.

 Dove cottage: home of William Wordsworth and also Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 The front parlor, coal fire

 Kitchen, running water a Victorian addition

 The "buttery": used to be an inn before Wordsworth's time

 Wordsworth's chair

 Wordsworth's favorite portrait

 The parlor where they wrote and discussed poetry, probably Coleridge more than Wordsworth because Wordsworth wrote most of his in the back garden or even away from home.

 Wordsworth's award of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1843

 His suitcase.

 Coleridge's portrait

 "...one of our visitors, Mr. Reynolds..."

Wordsworth locked his tea up as a precious commodity.

 The back garden, where Wordsworth paced up and down and composed his poetry.

 Stone steps up the garden hill

 The view of the cottage, the village, and fells beyond, all from the garden hill

St Oswald's Church, Grasmere, where Wordsworth is burried. The church itself has a much older and evocative history...

 The yew tree in the churchyard, planted by Wordsworth himself...

Inside the Church is a standing testimony to the piety of northern Christianity, very few images, but many Scriptures boarded on the sides. The architectures is almost Puritan, although the church was founded by Oswald, Christian King of Northumbria and dates to 642. The addition of a parallel nave is significantly newer, dating from 1490-1500, still before the Puritans.

 Beautiful hammer-beam ceiling

 On our way to the church, we visited the "celebrated" Grasmere Gingerbread House of Ambleside, where the finest gingerbread this side of the Atlantic may be found (in the world, I think).

Served by Mother Goose and Betty Botter (from right to left):

And here's to the maid in the lily-white smock
Who tripped to the door, and slipped back the lock,
Who tripped to the door, and pulled back the pin,
For to let these jolly wassailers in. 

The gingerbread had a fine layer of granulated crust held together by a gummy interior which flexed and finally gave way in a bite.

 On the way to Hill Top Farm

 The village of Near Sawrey

 Across the road from the Tower Bank Arms lodgings

 Pasture of Hill Top

Hill Top Farm, where Beatrix Potter came to write and illustrate her beloved children's stories. Her living quarters were across the road from Tower Bank Arms.

Cock Robbin, you will remember from the illustration, who seems to have flown in from Miss Potter's past to welcome us to her quiet garden.

 The back garden, complete with Mr. McGregor's spade planted firmly in the ground.

 Remember, Miss Potter coming through that gate and to the door in the BBC adaptations?...

 All was quiet, we were the only visitors, although the premises gets hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

 Tower Bank Arms, lodgings. Remember Miss Potter riding along the road in the BBC adaptations?

 a pleasant moment of twilight