A DAY of vintage-themed events is to take place at Beatrix Potter's beloved farmhouse, Hill Top, to celebrate 70 years of visitors at the Near Sawrey property.

Back in 1946 when the house opened, the entrance fee was one shilling, and Mrs Susan Ludbrook, the first custodian, was the only member of staff.

Hill Top immediately became a popular destination and attracted more than 1,000 Potter fans during the first seven weeks. Today it welcomes around 100,000 visitors from around the world each year.

The celebrations on Thursday, July 7 will see National Trust staff at Hill Top going back to the 1940s by dressing in period costume. Special items will be on display in the house, and in the garden there will be storytelling, rag rug making, and the chance to try watercolour painting and meet a Herdwick sheep.

As the National Trust explained, Beatrix Potter had always planned that Hill Top would be open, with her treasured belongings kept in situ. She wrote in her will: "That the rooms and the furnishings used by me at Hill Top farmhouse may be kept in their present condition and not let to a tenant and it is my wish that any other objects of interest belonging to me in any other of my cottages and farmhouses may be preserved therein."

Clare Perry, the Beatrix Potter project manager for the author's 150th anniversary, said: "This year we are celebrating a double anniversary, 70 years of Hill Top being open to visitors and 150 years since the birth of Beatrix Potter. She was an inspirational woman, with an astute business mind as well as a gifted illustrator and author. She left the National Trust one of our largest legacies of 15 farms and just over 4000 acres of land. We are still caring for this legacy today for visitors to enjoy."

For more, visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hill-top