The farm is sited on the lower slopes of the Kirkstone Pass and it was under threat of development until Beatrix Potter bought it and kept it together as a working unit. Here she built up a celebrated flock of Herdwick sheep, a breed of small hardy sheep with course dark wool which is indiginous
to the Lake District. Today, descendants of those sheep can still be seen on the fells and in the fields. We passed many on our walk!Beatrix Potter used the farm as a setting for the Fairy Caravan stories, and several other pieces. Some of her writing was done in a little study she had at the farm.
In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Troutbeck like this:
TROUTBECK, a village and a township-chapelry in Windermere parish, Westmoreland. The village stands 2½ miles N by W of Windermere, is not a village in the ordinary sense of the word, but a series of hamlets bearing different names, and aggregately about 1½ mile long; and has a post-office, of the name of Trout-beck-Bridge, under Windermere. The chapelry comprises 4,700 acres of land, and 622 of water. Real property, £2,718. Pop., 428. Houses, 81. The surface is a picturesque vale, overhung by mountains, beautified with culture, and descending with magnificent outlook to the shore of Windermere lake. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Carlisle. Value. £62. Patron, the Rector of Windermere. The church was built in 1562, and repaired in 1828.
I love his description of Troutbeck as a "picturesque vale, overhung by mountains, beautified with culture, and descending with magnificent outlook to the shores of Windermere."