By Steve Roberts Perhaps the writer who had the most influence on how we now regard nature was Beatrix Potter, who from her Lake District home reimagined the natural world around her. But one of her most celebrated tales had a Cotswold origin.
One of the aspects of Cotswold Greats I appreciate is the mix of people we feature. Sometimes they’re lesser-known characters who deserve their moment in the light but others have had their moment in the full glare of publicity and some. It’s just that their connection with the Cotswolds might be lesser-known. This month’s featured Great, Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), falls into the latter category.
Inventive authoress and much more besides, Beatrix was born Helen Beatrix Potter in London on 28th July 1866, the first child of Rupert Potter, but was known by her middle name to demarcate her from her mother, another Helen. She’s most associated with her native London and her adoptive Lake District, however, she also had some strong, if less acknowledged, links with the Cotswolds. A sickly child who was often ill, Beatrix wanted for nothing due to her wealthy parents so really didn’t have to bother with the grubby world of work. She interested herself instead in the natural world which would come through loud and clear when she found her literary vocation. She also wrote scientific papers on stuff such as fungi.
Potter wrote many children’s books which she was able to illustrate herself as she was also a talented watercolourist. The best known of these are the tales of ‘Peter Rabbit’, ‘Jemima Puddleduck’, ‘Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’ and ‘Squirrel Nutkin’. Rabbits and ducks don’t frequent our garden, however, our hedgehog houses do attract relatives of Tiggy-Winkle, sometimes to hibernate, more often just to kip and feed on an airbnb basis. I’d like to say we’re equally welcoming towards grey squirrels, however, having seen off the latest ‘Tufty’ wrecking-ball from the garden I’m not so sure. Beatrix’s first full-length work for children was ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit which was rejected by so many publishers that in the end she decided to self-publish just 250 copies. Those quickly sold out to be followed by 45 million more worldwide making it one of the biggest-selling children’s books of all time. This makes the rather meagre sales of my two published books take on a new and rather unwelcome perspective. Given that Beatrix’s works are borderline scary with the occasional kitten ending up in a pud and such like, well, I do wonder if I should have introduced a few more murders into mine to boost sales. It clearly worked for Potter.
Potter’s connection with the Lake District dated back to 1882 when still a teen living in London. It was a family holiday and it created an attachment which was rooted over 20 years later. I need to bring the Cotswolds into the story though before my readers start to suspect that I’ve lost the plot. Our Beatrix, the Cotswold one, used to stay on a regular basis betwixt Gloucester and Stroud. Beatrix’s cousin, Caroline Hutton, lived at Harescombe Grange, which lies near Stroud around five miles south of Gloucester. The Grange sits up the hill so has a commanding view down over the church of St John the Baptist, surely visited by Beatrix, and the hamlet of Harescombe. Beatrix sketched at Harescombe, including a delightful springtime one of the ‘nuttery’, a watercolour, pen and ink piece of 1903. Beatrix’s many visits, usually in May/June time. would see her take the train from London to be met at Stroud station. The first of these (1894) had Potter reflecting that it was her first trip away, independently, in five years. It must have been a delight to her as it was an experience she repeated many times.
In Gloucester itself we have ‘The House of the Tailor of Gloucester’, a museum and shop in College Court which stands next to venerable St Michael’s Gate and has the shadows of the mighty cathedral fall upon it. This was one of the buildings drawn by Beatrix for her stories (see page 37 of ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’) and which she claimed inspired her to write her favourite book. It was May/June 1894 when Beatrix was staying with her cousin that Caroline acquainted her with the curious tale of the Gloucester tailor John Pritchard who shut his shop over the weekend (as people used to do), returning on the Monday morning to find an incomplete waistcoat all neatly sown up. From that moment the tailor began advertising his wares as ‘made at night by fairies’. The following day the gals visited Gloucester and Beatrix saw the shop, which was actually at 45 Westgate Street, but 9 College Court was one of the old Gloucester buildings that she sketched which actually became the setting for the story. At the time of Beatrix’s visit this old building, which can be traced back to 1535 was home to the Broadway Oyster Company. Beatrix sketched many other Gloucester buildings and of course loved the cathedral.
Beatrix’s story was first committed to paper in 1901 as a Christmas present for a former governess’s daughter. It would be October 1903 when a reworked version of the story was published by Frederick Warne (Beatrix would accept a proposal of marriage from his son, Norman Warne, in 1905, but sadly Norman would die of leukaemia the same year). It’s an unusual story among Beatrix’s two dozen or so children’s books as it’s one where the main character is a human, not an animal. The book’s drawing of the tailor was not based on Pritchard, however, but the delightfully alliterative Percy Parton who was the coachman’s son at Harescombe Grange. Another tweak was that Pritchard’s fairies became mice, based on a couple who’d been caught in a trap at the Grange. The building/attraction that inspired the story would close in 2005 but happily reopened in 2007 with actress Patricia Routledge of ‘Hyacinth Bucket’ fame doing the honours. John Pritchard meanwhile was immortalised; his Gloucester grave records him as ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’. Beatrix actually presented him with a copy of the book which is rather nice, one of the first 500 copies privately published in 1902.
Potter moved to Hill Top Farm, Near Sawrey, in 1905, which was in Lancashire back then, but Cumbria today. This would be her home until her death. It’s about 1½ miles west of Lake Windermere and was purchased from the proceeds of that first eventual runaway success, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’. Although this was nominally her ‘home’, she actually spent more time at nearby Castle Cottage following her marriage in 1913 to solicitor William Heelis. She did a lot of her writing though at the farm although her output tailed off dramatically after she wed. Being married aged 47 was a bit of a blow to Beatrix’s mother who’d imagined her daughter would marry some well-connected young type and start having her own brood rather than frittering away her time scribbling about hedgehogs and bunny rabbits.
Beatrix was also a sheep breeder and conservationist, buying up large swathes of countryside on the proviso that the National Trust would buy half of it from her when the funds became available. Here was someone using their earned wealth for the greater good. She was into conservation long before the cause became trendy. Talking of the National Trust, it’s portfolio includes at least a dozen properties connected with writers, a bit of a who’s who of English Lit; one of them, of course, is Beatrix. The last of Beatrix’s little books, designed so that even the smallest of children could hold them, ‘The Tale of Little Pig Robinson’, was published in 1930. When Beatrix died three days before Christmas in 1943 aged 77 she left 4,000 acres of land and 14 farms to the National Trust.
CHRONOLOGY
1866 – Helen Beatrix Potter born in South Kensington, London (28th July).
1882 – First visit to the Lake District which would later become home.
1894 – Potter visits Gloucester and gets the idea for ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’.
1901 – Potter’s Tailor of Gloucester story is first put to paper (it would be published in 1903).
1902 – The first 500 copies of ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’ are privately published.
1903 – Potter sketches the nuttery on one of her many visits to Harescombe Grange.
1905 – Marriage proposal from Norman Warne who sadly dies the same year.
1913 – Marriage aged 47 to solicitor William Heelis.
1943 – Death of Beatrix Potter in Near Sawrey, Lancashire (22nd December) aged 77.
THE HOUSE OF THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER
9 College Court, Gloucester, GL1 2NJ.
Web: www.tailor-of-gloucester.org.uk
Tel: 01452 422856
