Derwent Island House (often called Derwent Isle House) is a Grade II listed 18th-century

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

house situated on the Derwent Island,

Derwent Water Derwentwater, or Derwent Water, is one of the principal bodies of water in the Lake District National Park in north west England. It lies wholly within the Borough of Allerdale, in the county of Cumbria. The lake occupies part of Borrowda ...

Keswick, Cumbria Keswick ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Allerdale Borough in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically, until 1974, it was part of Cumberland. It lies within the Lake District National ...

, and in the ownership of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. It is leased as a private home, but is open to the public five days a year. The interior is classical in style.

History

Derwent Island was owned by

Fountains Abbey Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It is located approximately south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, near to the village of Aldfield. Founded in 1132, the abbey operated for 40 ...

and used by monks, but with the dissolution of the monasteries, it became property of

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

in 1539. In 1569 it was sold to the Company of Mines Royal a subsidiary of a German mining company. The German miners built a camp on the island where they kept animals, grew vegetables and brewed beer. In 1778 Joseph Pocklington bought the island (then known as Vicar's Island) from Miles Ponsonby for £300. He built a house, boathouse, fort and

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

, and

Druid A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. Whi ...

circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

on the land. The house was one of the earliest villas to be built in the lake district, an entry in Pocklington's notebooks suggests that he saw a house on Belle Isle (in nearby

Windermere Windermere (sometimes tautology (language), tautologically called Windermere Lake to distinguish it from the nearby town of Windermere, Cumbria (town), Windermere) is the largest natural lake in England. More than 11 miles (18 km) in leng ...

lake) in 1776, perhaps inspiring his own ambition for a house on a lake district island. Pocklington held annual

regatta Boat racing is a sport in which boats, or other types of watercraft, race on water. Boat racing powered by oars is recorded as having occurred in ancient Egypt, and it is likely that people have engaged in races involving boats and other wate ...

s on the lake at which he fired off his cannon and the small fort used for mock battles. Pocklington sold the island to William Peachy in 1796, a friend of poet Robert Southey. Henry Cowper Marshall purchased the island in 1844 and employed architect

Anthony Salvin Anthony Salvin (17 October 1799 – 17 December 1881) was an English architect. He gained a reputation as an expert on medieval buildings and applied this expertise to his new buildings and his restorations. He restored castles and country ho ...

to add east and west wings and a three-storey tower to the house. In 1951, Mr Marshall's grandson Denis Marshall gave the property to the National Trust. During the 20th century, the house was home to several members of the

Grindlay family The Grindlay family (Old English: Compound_(linguistics).html" "title="nowiki/>Compound (linguistics)">compound] ''Grēne''/''Grynde'' + ''Leāh''/''Leā'') is an ancient knightly family of England and Scotland, whose ancestry can be traced bac ...

who leased it from the Marshalls.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

was upset by the building, feeling it spoiled the view, and described Pocklington as "a native of Nottinghamshire, who played strange pranks by his buildings and plantations upon Vicar's Island, in Derwentwater, which his admiration, such as it was, of the country, and probably a wish to be a leader in a new fashion, had tempted him to purchase."Wordsworth, "First Letter on the Keswick and Windermere Railway", 1844.

Gallery (Derwent Island and Derwent Water)

File:Keswick Panorama - Oct 2009.jpg, File:Derwent Water, Lake District, Cumbria - June 2009.jpg, File:Derwent Water, Keswick - June 2009.jpg,

Notes

External links

Derwent Island House
- National Trust {{coords, 54.5912, -3.1449, display=title National Trust properties in the Lake District Historic house museums in Cumbria Keswick, Cumbria