There’s nowhere else quite like Troutbeck in the Lake District. While other settlements cluster together in valley bottoms, this idyllic village is strung out along the fell side, in places almost 200ft above the beck with which it shares its name. While dry-stone walls neatly parcel the grazing land up into enclosures, characterful seventeenth- and eighteenth-century farmhouses and cottages are scattered along a line of natural springs. The most famous of these buildings is Townend, which is open to the public.
The pretty village church, with its daffodil-filled yard, lies outside the main area of settlement, beside Trout Beck. Its most famous feature is its large east window which was the work of William Morris, a leading light in the Arts and Crafts movement, and pre-Raphaelite artists Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown.
The valley is one of several places in the Lake District that is linked with children’s writer and conservationist Beatrix Potter. She owned Troutbeck Park, a large sheep farm sitting at the base of steep slopes leading up on to the high Kentmere Fells.
