Lawson Park is a remote

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Lake District hillfarm, leased by

Grizedale Arts Grizedale Arts is a contemporary arts residency and commissioning agency sited in Grizedale Forest in the central Lake District in rural Northern England. It conducts cultural projects locally, nationally and internationally from its bases at La ...

(a contemporary art commissioner) from the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respon ...

. It is situated opposite the village of Coniston overlooking Coniston Water. A major refurbishment by architects Sutherland Hussey in 2007/8/9 has seen the farm transformed into a residency and office base for Grizedale Arts. It now offers live/work residencies to contemporary artists and hosts events and conferences periodically. Grizedale Arts director Adam Sutherland has furnished the building with a notable collection of works by British designers and manufacturers from 1820 to the present day. Circa of land around Lawson Park is being returned to productive use as a

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

, and the gardens, designed by artist & film-maker Karen Guthrie, are open to the public in summer under the

National Garden Scheme The National Garden Scheme opens privately owned gardens in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and the Channel Islands on selected dates for charity. It was founded in 1927 with the aim of "opening gardens of quality, character and interest to th ...

History

The farm was first recorded under the ownership of the Cistercian

Furness Abbey Furness Abbey, or St. Mary of Furness, is a former Catholic monastery located to the north of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The abbey dates back to 1123 and was once the second-wealthiest and most powerful Cistercian monastery in the cou ...

(

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

) in the 13th century, when it was used as a base for charcoal-burning. After deforestation of the surrounding land in the late medieval period, the farm was used by a succession of tenant sheep-farmers. In the late 19th century Victorian polymath

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

- who lived in nearby

Brantwood Brantwood is a historic house museum in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Jo ...

- purchased the farmhouse and land. After Ruskin's death the farm was tenanted by various families until the Taylforth family ended farming in the 1950s. The buildings were used as a student hostel until the late 1980s.

External links

* {{coord, 54.3468, -3.0519, type:landmark_region:GB-CMA, display=title English contemporary art Farms in Cumbria