Page "Beatrix Potter" Paragraph 9

For most of the first fifteen years of her life, Beatrix spent summer holidays at Dalguise, an estate on the River Tay in Perthshire, Scotland.

There she sketched and explored an area that nourished her imagination and her observation.

Beatrix and her brother were allowed great freedoms in the country and both children became adept students of natural history.

In 1887, when Dalguise was no longer available, the Potters took their first summer holiday in Lancashire in the Lake District, at Wray Castle near Windermere.

As a result, Beatrix came to meet Hardwicke Rawnsley, incumbent vicar at Wray and later the founding secretary of the National Trust, whose interest in the countryside and country life inspired the same in Beatrix and who was to have a lasting impact on her life.