This unassuming little garden arbour has provided shelter for some of the greats of the 19th century – although the name of only one will be widely recognised today. It was built as a retreat in the grounds of a ‘small Gentlemans House’ called Dove Nest, which ‘stands on a sweet Wooded eminence with a fine grass Knoll in front which commanded a noble view of great lake of Windermere and the fells beyond.

In 1810 Ellen Weeton was employed at Dove Nest as governess to the Pedder family. She described her new surroundings to a friend, writing that a pretty walk led from the house to the flower garden where there was an arbour. Miss Weeton was intrigued by an inscription in pencil recording that ‘Adam Walker was delighted here, June 24th 1807’. Presumably it was the view which had caused such a stir: before the planting on the shores matured the panorama was said to take in almost the whole length of the lake.

Adam Walker (c.1731-1821), author and inventor, is largely forgotten today, and possibly wasn’t known to all even in his lifetime: under the pencilled words Miss Weeton saw a footnote to explain that he was the ‘celebrated experimental philosopher’.

Two decades later another visitor to Dove Nest caused a bit of a stir, for she was then feted as one of the best known writers of the day: Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835).

Mrs Hemans, as she was known, produced a large body of work, but she is best remembered today for The Stately Homes of England and for Casabianca: the latter tells the true story of a young man who refused to leave a sinking ship during the Battle of the Nile. If Casabianca doesn’t sound familiar, you will definitely recognise the opening line: ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’. The poem is perhaps best-known today for its countless parodies, most of which are far too rude to repeat here.

In 1830 Mrs Hemans visited the Lake District to stay with fellow poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) at his home, Rydal Mount. After a fortnight there she decided to extend her stay by a few weeks and rented Dove Nest, a ‘lonely, but beautifully situated cottage’ which she had previously admired from the lake. Joined by two of her sons she enjoyed walking, exploring and boating on the lake.

Mrs Hemans described Dove Nest as having an ‘air of neglect’ which she rather liked. Nature was beginning to ‘reclaim’ the garden from art, and an ‘old-fashioned alcove’ was overgrown with ‘sweet-briar and moss rose-tree’. From the arbour there were views of ‘lovely Windermere’. Wordsworth frequently visited Dove Nest, and one evening he recited verse in the arbour. Mrs Hemans wrote that it was ‘quite a place in which to hear Mr. Wordsworth read poetry’.

Mrs Hemans had become a famous poet not just in Britain but in America too, and during her stay at Dove Nest word soon travelled that the literary lion(ess) was in town. She did her best to hide from the fans from both nations who turned up on her doorstep brandishing their autograph books, and hoping the celebrity would write a few lines (she called it ‘album persecution’). A friend of writer Harriet Martineau suggested she should just hang a bag of autographs on her door to avoid the nuisance callers, and fellow writer Charles Lamb (1775-1834) declared himself ‘no friend to Albums’. He despaired of the young ladies who turned up on his doorstep asking that he contribute to their books. He wrote a poem describing albums which begins:

‘Tis a Book kept by modern young ladies for show,
Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know.
‘Tis a medley of scraps, fine verse, & fine prose,
And some things not very like either, God knows.

Such was her fame that many years after her short stay at Dove Nest, postcards were still being issued captioned ‘Mrs Hemans’ Home’.

Dove Nest has been substantially enlarged since Mrs Hemans stayed there, and is now a smart hotel called The Samling. The garden arbour is listed at grade II.

For more on The Samling https://www.thesamlinghotel.co.uk

Eller How is a handsome villa, high above the town of Ambleside. In 1863 it was bought by the Boyle family, and soon after they added this curious prospect tower. Known as the Tower of Beauty and Friendship, thanks to a unique element of the design, it stands on a mound in the gardens.

Henry Boyle (1839-1901) was born in Staffordshire, where his family had played a prominent role in the pottery industry. Henry married Eleanor Hocking in 1862, and their extended honeymoon took in a trip to the Lakes. Enchanted by the scenery they decided to settle there.

Their new home was Eller How, a fairly recently built house which had previously been run as a school by Anne Jemima Clough (1820-1892), the great promoter of higher education for women, and the first Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Henry Boyle’s interest was the natural world, and having bought more land around the house he began to extend the garden. By 1869 he had added steam-powered heating to his new ponds, allowing him to grow ‘exotic aquatics’ which were the envy of professional gardeners (to be precise they were said to be in ‘ecstasies’).

He created a grotto with coloured glass windows that was home to rare ferns, and in 1898 caused a stir locally when he acquired ‘a real life specimen of the Egyptian crocodile’. The local paper was quick to snap up the story, and reported that the creature ‘was obtained from the banks of the Nile […] where the finest and most carniverous specimens of this reptile are found’. In its native habitat, the story continued, the crocodile liked to ‘bask in the sun’. Sunbathing is not a year-round pastime in the Lake District, so it was probably for the best all round when Boyle decided it had become too big, and it was quietly disposed of.

Amongst the newly-planted trees and shrubs there were rustic bridges and winding walks, which gave the ‘impression that the garden covers a much greater space than it actually occupies.’

The spoil from digging out the lakes and ponds, and sculpting the garden, is thought to have been used to create the mound, on which sits the unique and delightful tower. This was constructed by Henry Boyle himself, and just grew whenever Boyle found himself with some time on his hands.

Boyle commemorated his guests at Eller How in a unique fashion: their names and the year of their visit were inscribed into damp cement laid on the face of bricks, which were then incorporated into the fabric of the tower. The ‘Tower of Beauty and Friendship’, as it became known, mainly recorded female visitors, and there are around 40 women’s names visible today. The Boyle’s social circle included the local gentry such as Mildred le Fleming of Rydal Hall as well as the daughters of the Vicar of Ambleside and the local magistrates.

Boyle’s daughter-in-law recalled that some of the ladies later regretted this move, as the dated stones made it impossible to lie about their age. She was presumably referring in particular to the stone marking the visit of ‘Rotha Clay’, dated 1894. Rotha Mary Clay (1878-1961) was born locally, and would later make a name for herself as a writer and historian – her works include a book on Hermits and Anchorites, published in 1914. Alongside her neatly lettered name is inscribed ‘Birthday 16’, so she must have visited in August 1894 just as she was celebrating her 16th birthday.

Two of the few men whose names feature are William Wordsworth (not the poet, but his son, or possibly grandson), and the writer and Inspector of Schools, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) who was the son of Thomas, Headmaster of Rugby School.  The writer Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was at Eller How in 1864, and a stone was later added to the tower to commemorate her visit.

The Boyles had one son, Harry (1863-1937), and on his birthday in 1869 he planted a maple sapling in the middle of the tower. As the structure continued to rise the tree grew within it until, eventually, it spread ‘its branches above the uppermost platform of the tower, thus forming a natural green roof over the seat where one can sit and dream, unobserved, like a bird in its nest.’ Red squirrels became quite tame in the garden, and would come to the foot of the tower to be fed.

Unfortunately the Boyle family’s fortunes waxed and waned, and the house was occasionally let whilst they lived elsewhere for reasons of economy. In 1886 the ‘charming detached Villa Residence’ was advertised as available to lease at a ‘moderate’ rent. The advertisement described the ‘tastefully laid out’ grounds and the ‘Observatory’ which gave a ‘magnificent view’ of the vast expanse of Windermere.

After the death of Henry and Eleanor Eller How passed to their son Harry and his wife Clara, née Asch. Harry continued to care for the grounds until his death in 1937, his wife despairing of his ancient patched clothes, which led to visitors mistaking him for the gardener. The Boyles had no children and the house was sold after Clara’s death in 1966.

The gardens at Eller How, which also feature a rustic summerhouse, were ‘rediscovered’ as part of the Channel 4 series Lost Gardens in 1999, when the then owners, Frances and Jim Philbrook, were restoring the gardens. The current owners keep the beautiful gardens and grounds in the best of order.

Eller How is a private residence but you can see the tower from Sweden Bridge Lane: it’s a bracing uphill walk from Ambleside, but you can then turn and appreciate the magnificent panorama of town and lake that Boyle and his guests would have enjoyed from the top of the tower.

Some of the information here is taken from Clara Boyle’s book about her husband’s life, A Servant of Empire: A Memoir of Harry Boyle, published in 1938. Clara deserves her own biography: she was a Jew from close to the Polish-German border who worked to bring refugees out of Germany in the 1930s. In Britain she was active in numerous local charities, and worked to ensure folk dance traditions did not die out. As well as writing a book about her husband’s life, she also wrote German Days […] by a Polish Girl, an account of the customs and traditions of her childhood, published in 1919, and she frequently corresponded with the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.

Finally, a brief detour back to Anne Jemima Clough (also commemorated on the tower) who lived at Eller How before the Boyles. This wonderful ceramic plaque marks her birthplace in Liverpool – a serendipitous find when flâneusing in that city.

Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), whose inscribed brick is dated in the 1890s (it is today partially obscured by ivy) was a pioneer in the field of home education whose methods are still practised today. Visit this exhibition at the lovely Armitt museum in Ambleside to learn more about her. It is on show until December 2023 https://www.armitt.com/learning-through-the-natural-world/

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Conishead Priory, as the name suggests, was a religious house, but after the dissolution it became a private home. In the middle of the 18th century it was home to Thomas Braddyll (1730-1776) who created new pleasure grounds around the Priory, including a number of ornamental features.

The pleasure ground was described at length by Thomas West in his Guide to the Lakes, first published in 1778, two years after Braddyll’s death. West wrote that the ‘late owner performed wonders’ to create ‘the paradise of Furness’, and called the park had been ‘one of the greatest in England.’ Nature had of course been generous at Conishead, which is tucked between the hills and the sea, but as West wrote, Braddyll had consulted ‘the genius of the place’ to form a ‘magnificent whole’. 

Above the house, a lawn sloped up to woodland where in 1777 a young visitor found a ‘curious Hermitage, or Moss-House, where the Moss and Ivy are curled round by the curious Hand of Nature’.  Sadly no contemporary images have been found, and the view above is the only known record of the building intact.

West’s extravagant praise for the delights of Conishead can be seen in a different light when we learn from a visitor in 1779 that he had played a leading role in the design. The tourist wrote that the Hermitage was an ‘exact’ copy of ones seen in France, and was ‘built and furnished under the direction of Mr West’.

Thomas West (?1720-1779) was better known locally as Father West, a Jesuit priest who had returned to Britain after the closure of the Jesuit schools in France in 1765. He settled in Furness, and as well as tending to a small catholic flock, indulged his passion for history, and became friends with the principal local families: the Braddylls of Conishead and the Cavendishes of Holker Hall. West has not previously been acknowledged as a gentleman landscape designer, but that he took keen interest in contemporary design can be seen in his published works where he compares Conishead to two great landscapes: Wooburn Farm, Philip Southcote’s pastoral landscape in Surrey, and Mount Edgcumbe, overlooking Plymouth Sound in Devon.

The Hermitage was cruciform in plan and built of rustic rough stone blocks. It consisted of two rooms – a living chamber and a chapel with a painted glass window representing the Annunciation. No records of any religious activity have been found, but it would have been a place for quiet contemplation where one could appreciate the beauty of nature: visitors commented on the ‘great variety of pleasing views’ it commanded.

On Thomas Bradyll’s death in 1776 the estate was left to his cousin, or ‘the Grandson of my Aunt Margaret’ to be precise. This was Wilson Gale (1756-1818), and under the terms of the will he took the name Bradyll. The Hermitage was kept in good repair and was visited by guests exploring the ‘delightful walks’ in the park. An 1834 guidebook to the lakes mentioned the building, but found it inauthentic as it was ‘considerably more elegant than hermits are wont to construct for themselves’. Which diverts us to the question of whether it was ever inhabited: one story told in the area is that a ‘tame lion’ was kept in the Hermitage in the early 19th century. Another local legend says that a hermit was in residence for 20 years, but there is no evidence whatsoever, and as we shall see below, hermits were in short supply in the area. 

In 1843 the ‘pretty secluded retreat’ was described as ‘in perfect keeping’, but soon after this date the Conishead estate passed out of Braddyll hands. Wilson Gale Braddyll’s son and heir, Thomas, had lost money on a mining venture, and having also spent lavishly building the amazing house that survives today, he was forced to sell Conishead Priory. The estate has since had various institutional owners.

The Hermitage was intact, if overgrown, when architect and antiquarian John Flavel Curwen (1860-1932) gave a paper on it in 1902. The stained glass was gone, but he found the remains of a wooden bedstead, and on the floor of the chapel was a ‘massive cross of red sandstone, 5 feet 9 inches in length, but broken’. 

The current custodian of Conishead Priory, the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre, is slowly restoring the house and estate. In 2009 the Buddhist community commissioned Greenlane Archaeology to investigate the landscape, including the hermitage. No interior features are intact, but the truncated walls still stand, and the cruciform plan is clear to see. 

In recent years a new ornament has been added to the pleasure grounds at Conishead Priory in the form of this wonderful temple.

A second, and sadly also lost, hermitage was built not too far away in 1795. The eccentric Joseph Pocklington (1736-1817) embellished an island in Derwentwater with follies, and later constructed a hermitage at his Barrow Cascade House estate on the shore of the lake.

Pocklington was keen to find a hermit to animate the new building, and offered a generous half a crown a day in payment. But as William Gell recorded in 1797, the terms were tough: ‘The hermit is never to leave the place, or hold a conversation with anyone for 7 years during which time he is neither to wash himself or cleanse himself in any way whatever, but is to let his hair and nails both on hands and feet grow as long as nature will permit them’.

Curiously, the post seems to have remained vacant.

The Hermitage at Conishead is not publicly accessible, but the Manjushri Kadampa community welcome visitors elsewhere on the estate, and it is very well worth a trip for the beauties of the architecture (old and new), the woodland and the coastline. And there’s a great cafe.  https://manjushri.org

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Holme Island is a small island in Morecambe Bay. It sits close to the coast, not far from Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire). The island was connected to the mainland by a causeway in the 19th century, by which date it was home to a rather special small estate.

In 1828 Holme Island was offered for sale, with the particulars stressing its value as the site ‘for a Villa’. The small estate was bought by a Warrington lawyer called John Fitchett, and he had a summer residence built to the designs of the Kendal architect George Webster. After Fitchett’s death the estate was advertised for sale, with the 1839 sales particulars describing the ‘newly-erected Ornamental Residence’ surrounded by glades, lawns, ornamental shrubs, alcoves and terraces.

The new owner was John Thompson, and in 1845 he commissioned Messrs Seward, a Lancaster foundry company, to cast ‘sixteen noble pillars in the Corinthian order’ which would form a circular temple. This ‘very beautiful specimen’ of iron-casting was seen by the citizens of Lancaster to reflect not only Thompson’s impeccable taste, but also the civic pride at being home to such superior metalworkers. The local paper reported that ‘When the pieces are put together the effect will be very fine, and reflect the highest credit on the skill of the good old town’. George Webster’s practice was extending the house for Thompson around this date, and the design of the temple is also attributed to that office.

Local tradition has it that the temple was ‘executed by Italian craftsmen’. This may refer to the lovely painted studies of Roman goddesses that decorated the interior of the dome.

By the time the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map was published in 1848 (surveyed 1845), the island had formal gardens, lawns, plantations, walks and a scattering of ornamental buildings including a ‘pleasure house’ and grotto. At the southern tip of the island was the temple, the elegant edifice raised on a mound and surrounded by a moat crossed by a bridge. Holme Island was described in 1860 as ‘a perfect marine paradise’ and the temple as ‘perfectly modelled after the temple of Vesta’. Like the original outside Rome, the Corinthian columns supporting a frieze decorated with garlands and skulls, although it is not an exact copy.

Holme Island is strictly private, accessed only by a private drive from the coastal road. The grade II listed temple is now hidden by trees.

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The grandly-named ‘Temple of Naval Heroes’ stands at the end of a narrow causeway that leads from the grounds of Storrs Hall out into the water, offering magnificent views up and down the lake. The temple was constructed by Sir John Legard of Storrs Hall as an ornament to the new house he had built in the last years of the eighteenth century, and as an expression of his patriotism, Sir John being ‘passionately attached to his country’. The octagonal building carries plaques celebrating four great naval victors in the ongoing war against the French– Admirals Howe, St Vincent, Duncan and Nelson.

Legard had travelled extensively in Europe in his younger years but suffered ill-health later in life, including a weakness in his legs which left him unable to walk. Determined to enjoy an outdoor life, he retired to the shores of Windermere where he could indulge his love of sailing. Sir John was instrumental in establishing an annual regatta on Windermere in 1801, carrying on the tradition established on Derwentwater in the previous century. In his appositely named yacht, The Victory, Sir John triumphed over other local landowners, and it is likely that when he dedicated his summerhouse to the admirals he was playfully reminding his neighbours that his prowess on the lake matched that of the Royal Navy at sea. 

Sir John’s health continued to deteriorate and he left Storrs only a couple of years later but subsequent owners continued to appreciate the diminutive temple. It must have been something of a squeeze when on 2 May 1805 Jessy Harden of Brathay Hall and ten friends ‘breakfasted in the Temple of the Heroes’. Harden also joined another excursion to the temple later that month; a party that was immortalised in print after one of the revellers wrote a 14-page mock-heroic poem describing the day:

A Pic Nic I sing, of the very first rate,
A moderniz’d party, a new-fangl’d fete.

By the middle of the twentieth century the grade II* listed ‘little gazebo’ had succumbed to the ‘wear and tear of wind and water (and perhaps hooligans)’ and was looking rather sad. An appeal in 1962 raised £1,253, enough to cover the costs of restoration with a small surplus for maintenance. The owners of Storrs Hall, by now a hotel, handed the building to the National Trust in 1965 and visitors can walk through the hotel grounds and out to the temple.

There’s more Storrs Hall info here https://www.storrshall.com

Duddon Grove was once in Cumberland, separated from the Furness peninsula and Lancashire by the river Duddon. A few miles from Broughton-in-Furness, it is tucked away in a quiet corner of the county that is largely free from the tourist hordes. Since the county boundary changes of 1974 it has been in Cumbria. The present house, originally called Duddon Grove, was built by Richard Towers in around 1805, soon after he came into possession of the estate. In the garden stands a very ornate temple with a pediment supported by pillars with Corinthian capitals, and a level of ornamentation not seen on the austere mansion. 

Towers died without issue in 1831 and the estate passed to Frances Esther Millers, the sole issue of his sister and her husband, the Rev. William Millers. Miss Millers did not marry and devoted herself to good works, for which she was much admired in the district. Her mother had died in 1828 and three years later her father joined her at Duddon Grove. He died in 1843, and Miss Millers probably erected the temple in his memory as it is surmounted by a prominent date stone marked 1843 topped with a dramatic statue of a stag. Work was underway in 1845 when it was described as ‘now building’. In that year ornate carved stones for the portico were stolen and the masons, Messrs Brocklebank of Ulverston, offered a reward for information. Two local boys came forward to confess and were pardoned by the benevolent Miss Millers after suitable chastisement.

In the sedate age of steam it was an object to be viewed by passengers on the Whitehaven and Furness railway who were advised to note the ‘elegant mansion […] at Duddon Grove, with its Grecian Temple and neat Gardens’. An 1869 guide to the Lakes described it as ‘a small temple of white freestone, the entablature supported by plain columns with Corinthian capitals’, and noted that the interior was decorated with stained glass. Another guide, published in 1864, singled out Duddon Grove, one of the only ‘modern’ gentleman’s seats in the quiet valley, as ‘displaying its luxury in the midst of simplicity like an exotic plant blowing among our English wild-flowers.’

A painting in the collection of Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal confirms that there was an earlier temple. This temple seems to have been later remodelled into a larger estate building. The work is catalogued as being by an artist called John Robinson and dated c.1790. Richard Towers inherited the estate of his uncle, John Robinson, an Ulverston lawyer, in 1803 so the annotation of ‘John Robinson’ may refer to him and the painting was probably executed in the early 19th century after the house was remodelled. [NB this paragraph was updated 01 April 2019.]

The Duddon Grove estate was put up for sale in 1902 and a detailed set of particulars was produced. The ‘Magnificently Carved Stone Temple’ was used as a ‘Handsome Summer-House’ and contained ‘four costly painted glass windows representing the four seasons’. The pediment was topped with a ‘carved stag and urn ornaments’. A catalogue for the sale of the contents in the same year suggests the summerhouse had become something of a junk room as it contained oak chairs, a rocking horse, a sewing machine and other ‘sundries’. The sales particulars also highlighted the ‘armorial bearings’ and motto of Non Sine Pulvere which decorate the temple. The coat of arms above the door is something of a mystery, as neither of Miss Millers’ parents were entitled to bear arms. The motto, which can be translated as ‘no reward without effort’, is not known to be associated with either family.

The house was unoccupied after the Second World War with the inevitable consequence of steady decay. In 1967 it was offered the protection of a grade II listing but little effort was made to end the deterioration of the hall and estate buildings. A convoluted period of ownership ended in 2000 when a local builder converted the house into apartments before turning his attention to the tiny single-room folly.

The builder, Richard Bowness, asked Stockport based architects Worthington, Ashworth, Jackson & Walker to produce a plan to carefully restore the temple’s stonework and stained glass, and to enlarge the folly with the addition of a contemporary extension. Despite objections from the Ancient Monuments Society, local residents, and councillors the scheme was approved by 8 votes to 6 at the end 2003. County Councillor Alan Clark was quoted in the local press as saying that the planners had been blackmailed into approving a dreadful building to save a magnificent building. Bowness called a the project a ‘labour of love’ and he and his architects were rewarded with an award for the ‘best one off house conversion’ in 2008. When subsequently put on the market the estate agents were, for once,  justified to call it a ‘unique and rare opportunity’.

The building is a private home and there is strictly no public access.