Barrow House (Cumbria)

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Front of the Barrow House

The Barrow House is a 18th century villa, situated on the eastern shore of Derwent Water in Borrowdale within the National Park Lake District in the English county of Cumbria is. The house is a Grade II listed building and has been used in different ways since the time it was built. It was initially a private residence, later served as a hotel and one of the Youth Hostels Association operated (YHA) hostel and is now an independent hostel.

history

Construction began on Barrow House in 1787, the house was built by Joseph Pocklington (1736-1817). Pocklingthon was the son of a wealthy Nottinghamshire banker and was considered a wealthy eccentric by the locals . He had inherited a large fortune at the age of 26 that allowed him to live a life of luxury. In 1778 he bought Derwent Island House on Derwent Isle, the northernmost island on Derwent Water. Pocklington had various buildings built on the island with which he angered many locals and which the poet William Wordsworth described as "pure childishness". In 1796 Pocklington sold Derwent Island House to General William Peachy and moved into the newly completed Barrow House.

The cost of building Barrow House was £ 1,655. It was originally referred to as the Barrow Cascade House , as Pocklington had a 33-foot waterfall created behind the house to rival the nearby Lodore Falls . He had additional workers employed to divert and channel a stream for this purpose . The waterfall was universally endorsed, although Samuel Taylor Coleridge , who had little good things to say about Pocklington, called it "the common waterfall at King Pocky's." Shortly after completion, a folly in the form of a small hermitage was built between the back of the house and the waterfall . Pocklington hoped it could attract tourists and offered a local for a fee to play the role of a hermit ( ornate hermit ). The offer was never accepted, so the Folly remained uninhabited. At the beginning of the 19th century, renovations to the house led to lateral extensions and the redesign of the windows.

Pocklington died in 1817 and the house remained privately owned until it was converted into a hotel in the early 1900s. In 1931 it developed into a youth hostel and from 1950 it was used again as a hotel. The Youth Hostels Association acquired the building in 1961. In 2011 it was announced that the house, which had previously served as a YHA hostel, would be sold for financial rehabilitation by the YHA. The house went on sale in late 2011 for £ 1,250,000. In November 2011, Barrow House was acquired by a local businessman named John Snyder, who set up a non-profit organization (Derwentwater Youth Hostel Ltd.) to run the house as an independent hostel. The YHA gave their consent to keep the name Derwentwater Youth Hostel .

The hostel today

Since November 2011 the hostel is no longer part of the YHA, but is managed by Kathy Morris and Dave Piercy for a not-for-profit company. The hostel has 88 beds in 11 rooms and is geared towards families, groups and individuals. She has her own small hydroelectric power station .

architecture

The house has stucco walls painted white and a stepped green hipped roof with two dormers . The front of the house is characterized by three large two-story bay windows .

Remarks

  1. ^ Joseph Pocklington. Retrieved April 3, 2013 .
  2. ^ ME Brown: A Man of No Taste Whatsoever: Joseph Pocklington 1736-1817 . 2010, ISBN 978-1-4490-6438-9 ( Google Books ).
  3. ↑ Helen Carter: Youth Hostels Association accused of 'selling off the family silver'. The Guardian , February 23, 2011, accessed April 3, 2013 .
  4. ↑ The sales description read: “Spacious accommodation with a living space of 947 square meters surrounded by 6 hectares of land with forests, meadows and a waterfall”. Sale advertisement. rightmove, accessed April 3, 2013 .
  5. ^ Martin Wainwright: Derwentwater youth hostel is saved. The Guardian , November 1, 2011, accessed April 3, 2013 .
  6. ^ Official website of the Derwentwater Youth Hostel. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 2, 2012 ; accessed on April 3, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.derwentwater.org
  7. ^ Barrow House, Borrowdale. British Listed Buildings, accessed April 3, 2013 .

Coordinates: 54 ° 34 '12 "  N , 3 ° 7' 58.6"  W.