Editing Beatrix Potter (section)

===Country life and marriage===
[[File:Hill Top - geograph.org.uk - 4007824.jpg|thumb|[[Hill Top, Cumbria|Hill Top]] in [[Near Sawrey]]&nbsp;– Potter's home from 1905 until her death in 1943, now owned by the [[National Trust]] and preserved as it was when she lived and wrote her stories there.<ref name="Hill Top"/>]]
[[File:Potterguests.jpg|thumb|Japanese tourists (pictured at Hill Top) are among the frequent visitors to Potter's home. Merchandisers in Japan estimate that 80% of the population have heard of Peter Rabbit.<ref>{{cite web|last=Williams |first=Francesca |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-24625202 |title=Peter Rabbit: Why the Japanese love Beatrix Potter| publisher= BBC News| website= BBC |date=13 November 2013 |access-date=8 June 2023}}</ref>]]
The tenant farmer John Cannon and his family agreed to stay on to manage the farm for her while she made physical improvements and learned the techniques of [[fell farming]] and of raising livestock, including pigs, cows and chickens; the following year she added sheep. Realising she needed to protect her boundaries, she sought advice from W.H. Heelis & Son, a local firm of solicitors with offices in nearby [[Hawkshead]]. With William Heelis acting for her, she bought contiguous pasture, and in 1909 the {{convert|20|acre|ha}} Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top Farm. She visited Hill Top at every opportunity, and her books written during this period (such as ''[[The Tale of Ginger and Pickles]]'', about the local shop in Near Sawrey and ''[[The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse]]'', a wood mouse) reflect her increasing participation in village life and her delight in country living.<ref>Taylor, ed., (2002) ''Beatrix Potter's Letters''; Hunter Davies, ''Beatrix Potter's Lakeland''; W.R. Mitchell, ''Potter: Her Life in the Lake District''.</ref>

{{Quote box|width=27%|align=left|quote="Hill Top is to be presented to my visitors as if I had just gone out and they had just missed me."|source=—Statement by Potter in her will to the National Trust.<ref name="Hill Top">{{cite news |title=Beatrix Potter's Hill Top house, the Lakes: 'It feels like a game of Potter I-spy' – review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/jun/01/beatrix-potter-house-hill-top-lake-district-review |access-date=21 January 2024 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>}}
Owning and managing these working farms required routine collaboration with the widely respected William Heelis. By the summer of 1912, Heelis had proposed marriage and Potter had accepted; although she did not immediately tell her parents, who once again disapproved because Heelis was only a country solicitor. Potter and Heelis were married on 15 October 1913 in London at [[St Mary Abbots]] in [[Kensington]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dennison |first=Matthew |title=Over the hills and far away: the life of Beatrix Potter |date=2016 |publisher=Head of Zeus |isbn=978-1-78497-563-0 |location=London |pages=177}}</ref> The couple moved immediately to [[Near and Far Sawrey|Near Sawrey]], residing at Castle Cottage, the renovated farmhouse on Castle Farm, which was {{convert|34|acres|ha}} large. Hill Top remained a working farm but was now remodelled to allow for the tenant family and Potter's private studio and workshop. At last her own woman, Potter settled into the partnerships that shaped the rest of her life: her country solicitor husband and his large family, her farms, the Sawrey community and the predictable rounds of country life. ''[[The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck]]'' and ''[[The Tale of Tom Kitten]]'' are representative of Hill Top Farm and her farming life and reflect her happiness with her country life.<ref>John Heelis, (1999) ''The Tale of Mrs William Heelis&nbsp;– Beatrix Potter''; Lear, Ch. 13.</ref>

Her father, Rupert Potter, died in 1914, and with the outbreak of [[World War I]], Potter persuaded her mother to move to the Lake District, renting her a property in Sawrey. Finding life in Sawrey dull, Helen Potter soon moved to Lindeth Howe (now a 34-bedroomed hotel), a large house the Potters had previously rented for the summer in [[Bowness-on-Windermere|Bowness]], on the other side of Lake Windermere.<ref>{{cite book|last= McDowell|first= Marta|title=Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the classic children's tales|publisher=Timber Press|date=2013|pages=116|isbn=978-1604693638}}</ref> Potter continued to write stories for Frederick Warne & Co and fully participated in country life. She established a nursing trust for local villages and served on various committees and councils responsible for footpaths and other rural issues.<ref>Taylor et al. ''The Artist and Her World'', pp. 185–194; Taylor, ''Artist Storyteller'', pp. 105–144.</ref>