Vol. 2 No. 2 (2025): Tree Cultures and the Arboreal Humanities
Research Articles

Beatrix Potter and the 'Timber Question': Arboreal Stewardship in the English Lake District

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  • Anna Burton
Anna Burton
Universiy of Derby
From cover of issue 2.2, showing the art installation 'Of the Oak' at Kew Gardens.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/WHPPP.63876246815902

Published 2025-09-29

Keywords

  • timber,
  • tree felling,
  • planting,
  • Lake District,
  • Beatrix Potter

How to Cite

Burton, Anna. 2025. “Beatrix Potter and the ’Timber Question’: Arboreal Stewardship in the English Lake District”. Plant Perspectives 2 (2):302-20. https://doi.org/10.3197/WHPPP.63876246815902.

Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Burton

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

During Beatrix Potter’s residency in the English Lake District, trees were vital to her vision for and understanding of this landscape; much more than this, for this author, arboreal stewardship was bound up with being a good landowner and citizen in this region. This article explores Potter’s views regarding, and approaches to, tree planting, felling and the caretaking of timber on her land during the interwar period of the twentieth century, and at a particular time when the cultivation and conservation of this region’s trees were of national importance. Building on this context, and through a close reading of Potter’s tale, The Fairy in the Oak (1911), this study will explore how similar arboricultural impulses can be identified in the environmental ethics of the author’s earlier, fictional, writings too.

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