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Blackwell
was built between 1898-1900 for Sir Edward Holt, a wealthy Manchester
brewer, and his family of five children. Commissioned as a weekend
retreat, it represents the aspirations of a city industrialist looking
for an alternative lifestyle in the Lake District and to establish
a family seat. Unfortunately, we know relatively little about the
client or the reasons for his commissioning the architect MH Baillie
Scott. Perhaps it might have come through a Manchester contact who
knew of this promising young architect on the Isle of Man, which
had close links with Manchester at that time.
Blackwell
is a quintessential house of the Arts and Crafts movement and an
excellent example of innovative house design. Each space is defined
as an individual and complete volume, often including the more intimate
enclosure of an inglenook or alcove. Each room is a carefully orchestrated
place of differing spaces, controlled light, colour and sparkling
decorative detail. The house was built at a time that allowed for
leisured living and thus spaces were created for enjoyable habitation
- for gathering around the fireplace, looking out on framed views
of the Lake District, for glimpsing the activities of the family.
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The
essence of Blackwell lies in something that Baillie Scott called
'the soul of the house'. This quality, that he repeatedly stressed
in his writings, is central to the experience of Blackwell. He wrote
in 1906: 'A house may possess that inscrutable quality of the True
Romance. Not shallow, showy and pretentious as most modern mansions
are, but full of a still, quiet earnestness which seems to lull
and soothe the spirit with promises of peace'.
Blackwell
was inherited by Sir Edward Holt's second son, also Edward, in 1928.
However he had no children and used it less and less as a holiday
home. During the 2nd World War he was happy to allow it to be occupied
by Huyton College which was evacuated to Windermere from Liverpool.
The house never returned to domestic use after the war but was established
as Blackwell School, a girl's preparatory school which later passed
into private ownership. This was closed in 1976 and subsequently
the property was sold again. For almost 20 years it was leased as
offices by English Nature when the scale of decorative detail surviving
in its interiors was hidden from view behind boarded-up fireplaces
and banks of filing cabinets.
On
26 February 1999 Blackwell was purchased by the Lakeland Arts Trust,
following a major fund-raising campaign to save it. With funding
from the Heritage Lottery, the restoration of Blackwell has now
been completed and the house opened in July 2001 as an international
venue for the arts and crafts.
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Click for more on the School Years |
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Introduction |The House | The Collection | Baillie Scott | The Trust | The Restoration
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