Town End

Town End, a typical Lakeland yeoman's house, is one of our favourite National Trust properties. We arrived just as the house was opening its doors and the gloomy afternoon was brightened by a welcoming log fire. The ladies in the kitchen looked so comfortably installed that, for a brief moment, we were deluded into thinking they lived here, but no, they were guides waiting to show the visitors round. The house, which was built around 1626, has remained virtually unchanged over the centuries, and still contains the books, wood carvings and furniture of the Browne family, whose home it was for over four centuries. Divided into the "down house" which is the farm and the "fire house" the living quarters, it has mullioned windows and the tall cylindrical chimneys so characteristic of Westmorland. There is a very fine bank barn opposite. The last George Browne had three daughters, none of whom married, and in 1947 the property passed to the National Trust. It is, without doubt, the finest example of a Cumbrian statesman's house and, assisted by the warmth of an open fire and the welcome, feels very much a home. Troutbeck
Tel: 015394 32628