New Peter Rabbit garden will be ‘made in Cumbria’

A top garden designer has joined forces with Peter Rabbit to find the best local materials for a new garden at The World of Beatrix Potter™ Attraction in Bowness-on-Windermere.

Peter Rabbit in Honister with Richard Lucas

Richard Lucas wants the Peter Rabbit Naturally Better Garden to have an authentic Cumbrian feel, just like the gardens that can be seen in Beatrix Potter’s stories.

Richard recently travelled with Peter Rabbit to choose slate for the garden from The Honister Slate Mine.  He says: “Some of the walls in the Beatrix Potter stories are made from slate on one side and red brick on the other and this is something that I am keen to replicate in the new garden.  I’m also planning to use slate in the garden to create raised beds, after taking inspiration from seeing the way that slate was used as field dividers in the past.

“I was particularly keen to use slate from Honister because it’s the only surviving underground slate mine in England, which is much more environmentally friendly than quarrying. It also has a unique deep green colour that looks especially good when wet.”

Honister has been mined for centuries and produces Westmorland Green Slate.  Today it is also a popular tourist attraction offering indoor and outdoor Mountain Adventure.

Mark Weir from Honister says:

“We enjoyed helping Peter Rabbit select the slate for the garden at the World of Beatrix Potter.  We’re delighted that our slate will be used in the new garden and look forward to seeing it when it’s finished.” 

The walls in the Peter Rabbit Naturally Better Garden will be a mixture of slate from Honister and traditional red brick from the Furness Brick company. 

Furness Brick near Askham-in-Furness has been making bricks since 1845, so may well have supplied some of the bricks used in Beatrix Potter’s gardens.   The material for the bricks comes from the local area and they are made in coal fired kilns.  This process results in bricks that have a quality and charm seldom found in modern bricks.

Woven Willow features in the garden are being created by Willowpool Designs at Endmoor near Kendal. Owners Steve Fuller and Simone Siegan specialise in traditional and contemporary willow weaving.  They previously worked with Richard Lucas on the RHS Gold Medal ‘Cumbrian Fellside garden’ that he designed and created with Kim Wilde for the Chelsea Flower Show in 2005.

Local craftsman* and Joiner Matt Ainsworth from Westmorland Joinery has designed and is building the greenhouse for the garden after researching Victorian greenhouses. He has had to overcome a number of challenges, such as finding the type of pitch pine used in constructing these older greenhouses, which he eventually sourced from an old Lancashire Mill.

‘The Peter Rabbit Naturally Better Garden’ will allow visitors to step outside the attraction into an enchanting, romantic and interesting garden, recreating scenes from the Peter Rabbit stories complete with gooseberry bushes, fruit trees and of course rows of radishes and lettuces!”

Visitors will enter the garden through a potting shed and once there they will be able to see the same plant varieties that Beatrix Potter would have known.

Richard Foster, the General Manager of the World of Beatrix Potter Attraction, says: “Beatrix Potter was one of the very first conservationists and she personally managed to ensure that much of the Lake District is held in trust for the nation.  So it is appropriate that the garden should be created using the best natural and local materials.”

The World of Beatrix Potter is firmly committed to finding ways that enable it to improve the sustainability of all its operations.  It currently holds a Gold Award from the Cumbria Business Environmental Network, the highest level of eco accreditation the organisation can bestow. The attraction also uses an Environmental Management System.

The World of Beatrix Potter™ brings all 23 of the author’s tales to life with three-dimensional scenes featuring her characters. Sounds, smells and lighting are all used to create the atmosphere and bring the stories to life.

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