Miss Potter

Beatrix Potter’s tales of rabbits in jackets are so strongly linked to the Lake District you might be surprised to find this garden in Birnam. But Potter spent every summer from 5 to 15 here, and when visiting again in 1892 she met Charles Macintosh, the local postman who very likely inspired Mr MacGregor. ‘I asked him to sit down’ she wrote, ‘his head being somewhere in the chandelier. I would not make fun of him for worlds, but he reminded me so much of a damaged lamp post.’ They shared a love of the natural world and fungi in particular. Walking a 20-mile round, six days a week, gave him the opportunity to observe wildlife and discover new species; everyone knew him as the Perthshire naturalist. Potter went on to write a paper for the Linnean Society, but as a woman she wasn’t permitted to read it, and so she decided to switch from science to stories.