I’ve been invited to take part in the “Five Photos, Five Stories” challenge by Jude of Travel Words. The challenge is to “post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph, and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge”.

My five photos are from our recent Lake District holiday. The weather wasn’t very good so we visited a lot of houses. I’m taking them in chronological order and asking “Who lived there?”

Townend – who lived there?

Townend in Troutbeck has two things in common with yesterday’s house – it’s owned by the National Trust and it was home to the same family for centuries. But unlike the Stricklands of Sizergh, the Brownes, who lived here from the seventeenth century till 1948, were an ordinary family of farmers. I find the stories of every day people much more appealing than those of aristocrats, and Townend teems with characters. For example, Elizabeth Birkett married Ben Browne in 1703 and kept a commonplace book of recipes which still exists. I bought a little booklet of extracts and might try her bean cakes or apricot paste – but perhaps not some of her remedies such as “to stop bleeding at the nose: take the blood of the patient and therewith write on his brow the words consummatum est.” Another interesting inhabitant was George Browne who lived at Townend in Victorian times. By the time he owned the estate the family had made enough money for him to retire from farming at the age of 40. He turned his attention to his hobbies which included gardening, local history and wood carving. Much of the (quite quirky) furniture in the house was made or added to by George. I love all these details – so much so that I’ve now visited the house three times.

As yesterday, I’m not making any specific nominations, but if you’d like to do 5 Photos 5 Stories let me know in the comments and I’ll make it “official”. I’m also continuing to feature other bloggers who write about Britain. (These features are not nominations unless the recipients wish them to be.) Today it’s Joy Loves Travel. Her recent posts have made me wonder why I haven’t been to Wales for over 20 years, and why I’ve never been to Northern Ireland. However, at the moment Joy is exploring Hampton Court’s Gorgeous Gardens and Grounds. Well worth a visit!