Beatrix Potter1866–1943Hill Top by night
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London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) took delight in drawing the places and buildings she loved from all viewpoints, in varied seasons, and at different times of day. Here, the side view of Hill Top, one of her Lake District properties, appears with warm, inviting, yellow light spilling out onto the snowy winter track which approaches the farmhouse.
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three original Peter Rabbit books between 1901 and 1913. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- BP.294
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Meanwhile, in the life of Beatrix Potter
The whole life1903–1922
Two or three books a year with the editor Norman Warne
“The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin” and “The Tailor of Gloucester” followed “Peter Rabbit” in 1903 — both also began as picture letters to the Moore children. Working with the editor Norman Warne, Beatrix published two or three little books a year — 23 in all in that format, the last, in 1922, being “Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes”; the royalties gave her a degree of independence, though she still lived with her parents.
1905–1909
Learning to farm: a tenant, sheep and Castle Farm
The tenant farmer John Cannon and his family stayed on to run the farm while Beatrix made improvements and learned the techniques of fell farming and livestock; the following year she added sheep. To protect her boundaries she turned to the Hawkshead solicitors W. H. Heelis & Son and, with William Heelis acting for her, bought adjoining pasture — in 1909 the 20 acres of Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top.
1905–1913 · Education
governance
summer 1912
William Heelis proposes
By the summer of 1912 William Heelis, the solicitor with whom Beatrix handled the affairs of her farms, had proposed and she had accepted; she did not tell her parents at once, and they again disapproved, since Heelis was only a country solicitor.
15 October 1913
Marriage to William Heelis and the move to Near Sawrey
On 15 October 1913, at St Mary Abbots in Kensington, the 47-year-old Beatrix married William Heelis and moved with him straight to Near Sawrey, to Castle Cottage, the renovated farmhouse on Castle Farm. Hill Top remained a working farm but was remodelled to house the tenant family and her private studio and workshop.
c. 15.10.1913
Married: William Heelis
