Wray Castle

Wray Castle is a fancy old building in the United Kingdom's Lake District. The official website is actually quite unhelpful if you want to know the history: "Wray Castle came to us without its contents so you will not see a 'typical' National Trust house full of paintings, furniture and antiques with an accompanying owner-family history through the ages. What you will see is a 'tired' but fascinating building with hints of its 'grand' past and plenty of signs of its varied history (a history that shows in its fixtures and fittings right up to the 1990s, including numbers on room doors and institutional paint-schemes). Make sure you join one of our free tours to get its full life story." But I can't join a free tour because I don't live in Cumbria!

In February of 2010, the BBC reported that the castle might be converted into a hotel, and included this interesting tidbit: "It's probably best known as a former nautical college training ships radio officers, and more recently a training school in electronics."

Visit Cumbria adds to the picture: "This is not a real castle but a private house built in in the Gothic Revival Style in 1840. It was built for Dr James Dawson, a retired Liverpool surgeon, and is now owned by the National Trust. The house was built using his wife's inheritance from a gin fortune. Apparently she took one look at the house when it was finished, and refused to live in it."

BritainExpress provides another summary, and of course Wikipedia has plenty of general information. Most sources mention that the eminent Romantic poet William Wordsworth and the beloved children's author Beatrix Potter were both familiar with the castle. I'm not particularly acquainted with Wordsworth, but I grew up reading Miss Potter's stories. As a fellow rabbit-keeper I appreciate her lapine works in particular.

// Project Gutenberg //

Anyway, Wray Castle's Flickr seems to be inactive currently, but the Facebook page has recent posts.



"Slate pieces prior to being made into new steps", and then this is an engraved one:



"The clock has its hands back!"



"Does anybody recognise this woman? Detail from a strange wall display discovered in the clock mechanism roof space." Does anyone recognize her? I'm very curious now.