Blackwell

Next day, the sunlight was streaming into the apartment as we got ready for a real treat. I was so looking forward to visiting Blackwell, an Arts & Crafts house, designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865-1945) and by far the best example of his work open to the public.

Before we started exploring, we had coffee on the terrace in the sunshine, overlooking Lake Windermere and this set the tone of the day … decidedly chilled … a brew with a view!

Blackwell was built as holiday for Sir Edward Holt, a wealthy Manchester brewer and completed in 1900, and was later a school and offices but has survived with almost all its original decorative features intact and has been open to the public since 2001. The furniture and objects in the rooms are not original to the house but are by leading Arts and Crafts designers and most are contemporary to the house.

Blackwell is asymmetrical in design with local influences such as the tall round chimneys and the use of local slate and sandstone. A variety of crafts have been incorporated into the house including tiles in the fireplaces, carved stone and wood paneling, stained glass, wrought iron and lead work, wall coverings and beautiful plaster work.

Blackwell gave Baillie Scott the chance to put his ideas on the use of space, light and texture into practice on a grand scale and as it didn’t need to be quite so practical as a main home, there was more scope to experiment. The main hall shows influence from old baronial halls, but is also modern, with plenty of room for the billiard table which would have stood under the six copper lights and the piano for musical evenings. There are also places to retreat such as into the minstrel gallery or by the fire with a book. At first glance, the peacock frieze appeared to be mosaic, but looking closer, it is wallpaper which took nine months work to conserve but looks amazing.

The dining room was cosier, but there is still good colour in the hessian wall covering and the fireplace is a joy.

The White Drawing Room comes as a surprise after the first two rooms, and immediately brought to mind Rennie Mackintosh’s House for an Art Lover in Glasgow. Firstly there is the amazing panorama from the window opposite the door …

… the dazzling white gesso everywhere … the ceiling panels, wall freeze and also the capitals which look like delicate trees …

… then another great fireplace with original firedogs and the vivid blue of the tiling complements the blue in the stained glass windows.

The Rowan tree appears in the family crest and is used as a motif throughout the reception rooms …

More stained glass and tiling details … so pretty!

After checking out the exhibition about the Arts & Crafts movement and another celebrating cultural connections with Japan at that time, we settled in the garden for lunch … I said it was a chilled day!

On the way back, we stopped at Sizergh (pronounced sizer to rhyme with Tizer!). The core of the castle is a 14th-century pele tower and hall and there have been additions every century since but we didn’t go inside as it was such a lovely day. Instead we just wandered round the gardens and even the estate walk seemed too much like hard work.

As we left we saw a sign for a farmshop and we picked up some Lancashire cheese made on the farm and cake. They also had a milk vending machine, selling whole organic milk from cows we saw being milked … and we confirm it was lovely for porridge and muesli.

In the evening we walked to Corner 134 in Kendal where we had a lovely dinner. We started with a platter of mixed tapas style mouthfuls, followed by venison with mustard & raspberry sauce for me and a veggie filo tart with taleggio for Chris. Afterwards we had vanilla ice cream with Pedro Ximenez. Who’d have thought ice cream with sherry poured over it was a thing … I’m obviously behind the times as Rick Stein did this 10 years ago!

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