Wray Castle is a large private house at Claife

Claife

Claife is a civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. It is situated west of Windermere, and east of Esthwaite Water and the village of Hawkshead. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 392...

 in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county of Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

, built in the Gothic Revival style in 1840. Today, the castle is used as a training centre, and is not open to the public. But the grounds are freely accessible and renowned for their selection of specimen trees - Wellingtonia

Sequoiadendron

Sequoiadendron giganteum is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with Sequoia sempervirens and...

, redwood, Ginkgo biloba, weeping lime

Tilia

Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The greatest species diversity is found in Asia, and the genus also occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but not western North America...

 and varieties of beech

Beech

Beech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.-Habit:...

.

Background

The house was originally built for a retired Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 surgeon, Dr. James Dawson. who built it along with the neighboring Wray Church using his wife's fortune. After Dawson's death in 1875 the estate was inherited by his nephew, Edward Preston Rawnsley. In 1877 Edward's cousin, Hardwicke Rawnsley

Hardwicke Rawnsley

Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley , was an English clergyman, poet, writer of hymns and conservationist, known as one of the co-founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty...

, took up the appointment of vicar of Wray Church. In 1929 Wray Castle and 64 acres (258,999 m²) of land were given to the National Trust by Sir Noton and Lady Barclay.

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...

 summered in the house when she was 16 in 1882. She bought nearby Hill Top in 1905 with royalties from her first few books. She bought considerable tracts of land in the area, including most of the land surrounding Wray Castle, though she never owned the castle itself.

Legacy

A ship, the Wray Castle, was named for the site. It was one of five large vessels built at the Williamson shipyard at Workington

Workington

Workington is a town, civil parish and port on the west coast of Cumbria, England, at the mouth of the River Derwent. Lying within the Borough of Allerdale, Workington is southwest of Carlisle, west of Cockermouth, and southwest of Maryport...

for the Lancaster Shipowners Company, the others were Greystoke Castle, Lancaster Castle, Lowther Castle and Pendragon Castle. The Wray Castle was the fourth, an iron four-master launched in March 1889.