Blackwell‘s Arts & Crafts designs extend all over the house.

A bedroom:-

Close-up on bedroom light ftting:-

Another of the beds:-

Bedroom chair:-

Chest of Drawers and bookcase:-

Chest:-

Blackwell‘s dining room is off the hall and has similar dark colours:-

Dining table:-

Sideboard. Typical Arts & Crafts styling:-

Dresser:-

Tapestry. Much faded now:-

Chair:-

The entrance corridor at Blackwell is fairly dark. Looking back to shop area:-

The corridor was designed to lead from darkness to light – onto a bright white painted room with a view to Lake Windermere:-

View to Windermere:-

This room immediately reminded us of the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Fireplace in white room:-

This chair especially. We were told it’s not original to the house but was brought in as being in keeping with the original furnishings:-

This corner cupboard  is flanked by two stylised trees, natural motifs are all around the house in the decor, particularly rowan berries, and apparently when the house was taken over after a long period of neglect there was a rowan sapling growing inside this cupboard:-

View from side window:-

This dark piece of furniture is out of keeping with the room but is contemporaneous:-

The entrance to Blackwell is now from the side where the shop and ticket office is and leads along a fairly dark corridor which passes the original entrance into which you can go and see these two stained glass windows:-

Across from this is another set of stained glass windows and a door which gives onto the hall:-

The same window from the other side – nice clock too:-

The hall itself is impressive:-

Reverse view showing bench, fireplace and minstrel’s gallery above:-

Side view of the bench:-

Hall ceiling:-

Settle on corridor wall:-

Peacock wallpaper:-

Hall from minstrel’s gallery:-

Blackwell is a house built in the Arts & Crafts style near Bowness-on-Wndermere in the Lake District. It was designed by Baillie Scott and erected between 1898 and 1900 as a holiday home for Manchetser brewer Edward Holt.

Being of that era it is not perhaps surprising that the house and some of its contents bear a similarity to the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh who was a contemporary.

House from car park:-

Outhouse (to right above):-

House from terrace, a stitch of two photos:-

Detail of roan pipe:-

The Roxy Cinema is fairly prominent as you pass through Ulverston to or from Barrow-in-Furness, standing as it does by the main A 590 road:-

Note rule of three, and banding, plus flagpole.

Entrance, also the entrance to the Laurel and Hardy Museum:-

From south, Art Deco lettering, banding on white background and rule of three in windows:-

View from north:-

Ulverston in Cumbria, is the nearest biggish town to Barrow-in-Furness, about ten and a half miles further north. It was the birthplace of Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame. There is a Laurel and Hardy museum in the town which we didn’t visit and a statue of the pair in the town centre.

The statue stood outside this fairly impressive building:-

Just across the road was this building:-

The Tesco’s in the town was in a minor Art Deco style. Its upper windows are completely ruined:-

Detail:-

Furness Abbey is a former monastery located in the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It was once the second wealthiest Cistercian monastery in England and it held large tracts of land in Cumbria and Lancashire. It was of course disestablished in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Nowadays it’s a ruin – or several ruins but it’s certainly worth going to see if you’re near Barrow.

Part of what remians is reinforced by steel supports:-

A stream runs under this bit:-

Shop block:-

Doorway, pediment and fanlight:-

Lakeland House on Abbey Road. Stitch of two photos:-

Central tower. Strong verticals and horizontals, rule of three in windows, streamline detailing:-

John Whinnerah Institute, Abbey Road aspect:-

Stitch of frontage:-

Doorway:-

Hindpool Road aspect of John Whinnerah Institute:-

Triangular Window detail:-

Former Roxy Cinema, now an entertainment venue named Hollywood:-

Former Marks & Spencer only recently closed:-

Upper level of M&S (stitch of two photos):-

Dandy’s Fine Beds and Furniture:-

Roofline detail:-