Beatrix Potter's 'Gift to the nation'

In 1882 Beatrix Potter was on holiday with her parents at Wray Castle, near Ambleside, in the heart of the English Lake District. There she met Reverend Hardwicke Rawnsley, the vicar of St Margaret of Antioch church situated at the entrance to the drive to Wray Castle.

It was a most auspicious meeting. Rawnsley was one of the three founding members of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Possibly the 'key' member, at least as far as the Lake District is concerned.

In 1883 Rawnsley had proposed the formation of the 'Lake District Defence Society', whose object was the prohibition of 'injurious encroachments upon the scenery .... from purely commercial or speculative motives.'.

Not only did Rawnsley introduce Beatrix Potter to the concept which led to her 'saving the Lake District', by purchasing a great deal of property, it was he who was responsible for persuading Potter that she should publish her Peter Rabbit and other books. It was the profits from these books that allowed her to purchase the properties that made up Beatrix Potter's enormous bequest to the National Trust.

The value of Beatrix Potter's bequest today would be in the tens of millions of pounds. Fifteen farms, 4000 acres, maybe twenty houses in Hawkshead and Near Sawrey, the property which is now the Beatrix Potter gallery (or was...), the 'Bend or Bump' house next door, William Heelis' office in Hawkshead.

It was such a large bequest that the National Trust named its headquarters in Swindon 'Heelis' (her married name).