Esthwaite Lodge is a 19th-century house in

Hawkshead Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, which attracts tourists to the South Lakeland area. The parish includes the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill, to the north west, and Outgate, a similar distance north. Hawkshead contains on ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

, England; it is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

. The house was commissioned by

Thomas Alcock Beck Thomas Alcock Beck (1795–1846) was an English author known for writing ''Annales Furnesienses'' (1844), a history of Furness Abbey, which was dedicated by permission to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and which contained twenty-six steel engravings ...

, a local resident and antiquarian. He employed Kendal-based architect George Webster to design a property for him. Webster's design was a stuccoed villa of two storeys and three bays with a slate hipped roof. Completed in 1821 the house is in the Neoclassical

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

style a

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

porch was added. Beck died in 1846 but his widow and his descendants continued to live in the house until the early 20th century. The 1911 census for England, however, records the property as being unoccupied. Ownership of the house passed to the Brocklebank family who leased the house to a number of tenants. One of these, between 1929 and 1932 was the novelist

Francis Brett Young Francis Brett Young (29 June 1884 – 28 March 1954) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, composer, doctor and soldier. Life Francis Brett Young was born in Halesowen, Worcestershire. He received his early education at Iona, a pri ...

until he decided that the weather was too wet for him. With the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the house was used for accommodating volunteers involved with the Hawkshead Afforestation Scheme and later members of the

Women's Land Army The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the W ...

. In 1942 the house was purchased by

Youth Hostels Association (England & Wales) The Youth Hostels Association (England & Wales) is a charitable organisation, registered with the Charity Commission, providing youth hostel accommodation in England and Wales. It is a member of the Hostelling International federation. Hist ...

and remains in use as a youth hostel.

References

{{reflist, 30em Grade II listed buildings in Cumbria 1821 establishments in the United Kingdom Neoclassical architecture in Cumbria Greek Revival houses in the United Kingdom Youth hostels in England and Wales Hawkshead

See also

References