Rusland Hall
Encyclopedia
Location
Grid Ref: SD3388In between the foot of Lake Windermere
Windermere
Windermere is the largest natural lake of England. It is also a name used in a number of places, including:-Australia:* Lake Windermere , a reservoir, Australian Capital Territory * Lake Windermere...
and Coniston
Coniston
-Relating to Coniston, Cumbria, England:*Coniston, Cumbria, a village*Coniston Fells, a chain of hills and mountains in the Furness Fells, in the Lake District**Coniston Old Man , the highest peak in the Coniston Fells....
is the Rusland valley. Rusland Hall stands at the valley head near to Rusland cross. On either side of the approach road to Rusland Hall are 400 acres (1.6 km²) of broadleaved deciduous woodland, rich in wildlife, clothing the valley sides. The valley sides are drained by many becks which converge to form the stream called Rusland Pool
Rusland Pool
Rusland Pool is a small river or beck running through the administrative county of Cumbria. Before 1974, Rusland Pool was in Lancashire.The source of Rusland Pool is to be found in Grizedale Forest Park, where several streams draining Monk Coniston Moor and Hawkshead Moor converge near Jack Gap...
.
History
The main house (on the site of an earlier building) was built in about 1720 (and extended in the 1840s) by the Rawlinson family who also owned nearby Graythwaite Hall. It is thought that the Rusland Beeches were planted during this time.
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
’s visits to the Furness area. Rusland Hall remained the seat of the Rawlinson family until 1750 and then the Archibald family owned the hall until it was sold out of the traditional landed gentry in the mid 1900’s. Rusland Hall was taken for a time in the late 1880s as a holiday home by the family of Beatrice Webb
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Lady Passfield was an English sociologist, economist, socialist and social reformer. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as Lady Passfield...
. Beatrice Webb and her husband Sidney were founders of the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
. Her diaries, started at the age of 15 highlight her time at Rusland
"14 December, Rusland Hall - This autumn has been a very happy one for me. ..I have gained immensely by taking up drawing and music with a spirit of love instead of with a spirit of jealous ambition; and this I owe to Ruskin and to Goethe". In later years the hall was variously a girls’ school, a children’s home and perhaps most famously a mechanical music museum and then bought by the Ramsden family in the 1990s but sold a few years later.
Mechanical Music Museum 1970 - 87
Furness
Furness is a peninsula in south Cumbria, England. At its widest extent, it is considered to cover the whole of North Lonsdale, that part of the Lonsdale hundred that is an exclave of the historic county of Lancashire, lying to the north of Morecambe Bay....
restored the fabric of the house to its former Georgian interior and exterior. Following restoration the house was opened to the public and became well known for a collection of self-playing musical instruments which was recognized as one of the largest collections in Europe (Ordnance Survey Leisure Guide - Lake District 1984). Many rare items from the period in musical history preceding the gramophone
could be seen and heard including self-acting pianos, pianolas and even pneumatic orchestrelle organs.
The Gardens
Landscaped in the manner of Capability BrownCapability Brown
Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...
with sweeping vistas and many specimen trees and shrubs. The Birkby's spent many years retrieving features such as the "Ha ha
Ha Ha
Ha Ha is the 9th studio album by Charged GBH released in 2002 on Go-Kart.-Track listing:# "Ha Ha"# "Falling Down"# "Crush 'Em"# "I Want To Believe"# "Song For Cathy"# "Sado Methodist"# "The Unexpected"# "Belgrade"# "The Power of One"...
" ditch. Also time was spent restoring the old roses on the Lakeland slate steps and nurturing the ancient and rare trees such as the magnificent cedar of Lebanon which has been felled in recent years. Each custodian of the estate has the desire to put their stamp on the house and garden but its essence still remains.
