Beatrix Potter Cushions

We have a lovely selection of Beatrix Potter Tapestry Cushions and Beatrix Potter Draught Excluders available to buy on our web site.

Click on the following link to view our full range:

http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/products.asp?search4=beatrix%20potter

Beatrix Potter Products Currently Available

Beatrix Potter Draught Excluder http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=2652

Mother Rabbit Beatrix Potter Cushion (Small) http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=2684

Mrs Tiggywinkle Beatrix Potter Cushion (Small) http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=2836

Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter Cushion (Small) http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=2683

Beatrix Potter Draught Excluder http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=806

Mother Rabbit Beatrix Potter Tapestry Cushion http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=639

Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter Tapestry Cushion http://www.abentleycushions.co.uk/detail.asp?pID=563

General Information On Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was born in Kensington, London in 1866. She grew up in a wealthy Victorian family and had a conventional childhood for a girl of her class and era.

Beatrix Potter was not sent away to school, but was educated at home by a succession of governesses so had little opportunity to mix with other children of her own age. Her only brother, Bertram, who was six years younger than Beatrix Potter, was sent off to boarding school, leaving Beatrix Potter alone with her pet animals. She had frogs and newts, and even a pet bat. Among her pets were two rabbits. Beatrix Potter´s first rabbit was Benjamin, whom she described as ´an impudent, cheeky little thing´, while her second was Peter, whom she took everywhere with her, even on trains, on a little lead.

Beatrix Potter would watch these animals for hours on end, sketching them. Gradually the sketches became better and better, developing her talents from an early age.

Every summer, Beatrix´s father would rent a country house; firstly Dalguise House in Perthshire, Scotland, then later on in the English Lake District. In the summer of 1882, the Potter family met the local vicar, Canon Rawnsley, who was deeply worried about the effects of industry and tourism on the Lake District and would, in 1895, found the National Trust, to help protect the countryside. Beatrix Potter had immediately fallen in love with the rugged mountains and dark lakes, and through Rawnsley, learnt of the importance of trying to conserve the region, something that was to stay with her for the rest of her life.

Beatrix Potter was already 36 years old by the time her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was finally published in 1902, after having been refused by various publishers. It was instantly popular with the public, and from that moment onwards, Beatrix Potter was just full of ideas, publishing on average two books a year for the next ten years. Although she was earning a considerable amount of money, she stayed at home in London, looking after her ageing father.

By 1905, Beatrix Potter had already had several books published by Frederick Warne and Co. She fell for her editor, Norman Warne, who proposed marriage. Beatrix´s father was opposed to this marriage, on the grounds that he considered Norman to be ´trade´, and therefore below his daughter. Tragically, this marriage was not meant to be, for just a few weeks after the engagement was announced, Norman died from anaemia.

Just after the death of her fiancé, Norman Warne, Beatrix Potter purchased Hill Top Farm in the village of Sawrey, in the Lake District. She would visit the farm as often as she could, but it wasn´t until 1913 that she would finally move to the Lake District permanently. Some of her best loved works show the farm house and the village. Her love for animals was constant over the years. The house was constantly alive with dogs, cats and even a pet hedgehog, naturally enough named ´Mrs Tiggywinkle´.

Hill Top Farm is now owned by the National Trust, and is open to the public on a limited basis, (with a maximum number of visitors per day), and remains in the same condition as it was when Beatrix was living there.

In 1913 at the age of 47, Beatrix Potter was finally married, to a local solicitor, named William Heelis. They lived for some time at Hill Top, before moving to Castle Cottage in Sawrey, leaving a Farm Manager in charge at Hill Top.  

After her marriage, Beatrix Potter wrote less and less, and concentrated more and more on farming - keeping sheep, pigs, ducks and hens - and on her other passion in life: the conservation of the Lake District countryside she had come to love. When she died in 1947 at the age of 81, her last wish was that the English Lake District be kept safe for future generations. Over the years she had purchased a number of farms, for this very reason, and in her will she left 17 farms including some 4000 acres of land to the National Trust, to ensure that her favourite corner of the country remained as unspoilt as when she had known it.