Wray Castle

Wray Castle, on a promontory overlooking Lake Winderemere, looks like it's stood there since the middle ages.

But, from foundations to battlements, it's a fake, built in the mid-1800s as a countryside retreat by a wealthy Liverpool doctor and his wife, and now owned by the National Trust.

Other Lakeland houses of the time were comparatively modest villas but Margaret Dawson inherited a huge fortune from her father, and the couple could indulge their every whim. The castle is designed to look as if it has stood there forever, and had changes made as fashions changed. There are even mock ruins suggesting demolished outer defences in the grounds! 

After the Dawsons died, the property passed to a distant relative who leased the castle to summer visitors, among them the family of Beatrix Potter. Inside the castle there's currently an exhibition of photographs taken by Mr Pottter on holidays around the Lake District - some informal family groups, some of landscape. I was quite surprised at them as I must admit that, based on the film Miss Potter starring Renee Zellweger, I'd thought of him as a rather dull businessman with no interest in arts of any kind. 

Inside, is a gothic re-imagining of how a castle should look with tiled floors and fireplaces, and ornate windows to frame the view.

Unfortunately the grounds were too soaked for walking other than along the well maintained paths of the arboretum, so it's one of those places I'd love to return to in better weather.

For this time, though, distant views of snow-topped hills had to suffice.