Radical Rethink in a Land of Poets

It’s a quick post from Betley Court Gardens this week. Nigel and I are off resting in the Lake District while I get over being poorly. Shortly after our fire at Betley Court, Andy our brilliant graphics designer messaged to tell us about a National Trust property he’d just visited. It caught his eye as this house too had been devastated by a fire. He thought we might be interested.

This was back in 2020, just six months after the fire, so it was still raw in our minds. Nevertheless, we were intrigued. The National Trust (NT)property in question is Allan Bank, in Grasmere. We decided to visit on Valentine’s weekend 2020. However, the North West of England was pummelled by a named weather event – Storm Dennis, and the decision was made by NT to close Allan Bank to protect the public from the potential of falling debris from the trees. Whilst we made the best of things (including watching a film at Windermere’s tiny, but gorgeous 1930s Royalty Cinema) whilst dodging the rain, we vowed to return sometime soon.

Fate decided this was not to be. So very soon after we were plunged into the first, terrible days of the Covid 19 pandemic, and barely a month after our ill-fated visit to the Lake District, Lockdown 1 started. It is incredible to look back now, but for all of us life was going to be very different. We had no idea then, when we’d be able to reschedule.

Allan Bank in Grasmere, once home to the poets Wordworth and Coleridge, and later Canon Harwick Rawnsey, a founder of the National Trust 

It’s taken us over two-and-a-half years to get round to visiting, and yesterday was the day. We were very lucky, as our return visit was in complete contrast to our first. We were greeted by a warm sun, and blue skies complete with fluffy white clouds. The mountainsides around the shores of Lake Windermere have just started turning into their autumn coat of yellow, bronzes and ochre. It was a sight worthy of any of the 19^th century landscape painters, and as we drove along the banks of the River Rothay, dozens of photographers lined the road, cameras aimed at the breath-taking views across the valley.

Allan Bank is a somewhat unusual NT property. It was built by Mr John Gregory Crump, a well-to-do merchant (or lawyer, depending on your source) from Liverpool, as a getaway in 1805. Later, he rented it to William Wordsworth (1770-1850), at that time a struggling poet, his wife Dorothy and their growing family. Allan Bank is where Wordsworth was to write his Guide to the Lakes, where he first mooted the idea of ‘a sort of national property’ to preserve places of great beauty, and stop them being overdeveloped.  The very root of the heritage movement. The house was also to become associated with another poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).

Later, a young vicar called Hardwicke Rawnsey (1851-1919) moved to Allan Bank. He was to go on to found the National Trust, along with Octavia Hill and Robert Hunter, with the aim of creating a charity that could hold property for the nation. Rawnsey’s widow, Eleanor lived at Allan Bank until her death in 1951, after which, it passed to the ownership of the National Trust. From then it was rented out until 2011, when an electrical fire in the roof space almost destroyed it.

Allan Bank, after the fire. Photo: National Trust

The National Trust made an interesting decision when it came to rebuilding. Rather than rebuilding it to an approximation of what it might have been in Wordsworth day (which had been over written by generations of subsequent residents in any case), they made good the house, rebuilding the roof, reinstating lost doorframes, windows and stair rails. Repairs to woodwork and ornate plastering were left to be seen. Decorative, but surface-damaged Victorian radiators were rubbed down and pressed into service again, without being restored.

The seat of the fire. whilst repairs have been made (new skylight, stair rail and repairs to plaster) there has not been any attempt to restore it to 'new'

The Trust has since used the house as a blank canvas space, literally. Every two years, a new artist in residence is invited to create a new body of work, using the interior walls of the house as their canvas. Currently, the Japanese artist Hideyuki Sobue is using the space, and has created astonishing portraits of Beatrix Potter (another activist for preserving England’s heritage), Wordsworth and Coleridge.

A larger than life portrait of Beatrix Potter, who alongside her work as an author and illustrator was a campaigner for conservation of the Lake District.

Elsewhere in the house, intimate seating areas have been created around every window with a view. Coffees and teas are available for a donation. Second-hand books can be purchased from wooden crates. There is no pressure to do anything other than sit and contemplate the view.

A fire-damaged orante, Victorian radiator, that has been rubbed down, but not restored, under a window with a view.

While we were there a father and daughter sat at a piano in the ‘kitchen’ playing duets on a tinny wooden upright piano. It was magical. Upstairs, a young American family drew the view from the window over towards Grasmere Island, an unusual way to record their travels. We sat drinking filter coffee from enamel mugs as we watched people explore the grounds from one of the windows. As National Trust properties go, this is one of my new favourites. It was an invitation to enjoy the property as you see fit. It’s almost as if the fire in 2011 set the house free to be more than a historical house with a former famous tenant. In a way, it breathed new life in.

Every window was kitted out with seating, inviting visitors to enjoy the view, paint, draw, read or just contemplating.

Nigel and I came away from the house inspired, and rested. What the National Trust has done at Allan Bank is such a radical rethink of what a historical house is, it made me ponder what might be done with our burnt-out shell!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su