Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on August 10, 2007 at 09:43:47 from 82.27.20.69 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Beckfoot-number of stairwells posted by John Giddy on August 10, 2007 at 08:26:25:
The illustration in WH shows quite clearly a door to the garden at the top of a flight of steps. It is located in a side extension behind the main wall of the house. The layout is confirmed by the picture of the rose trellis in PM, although this does not show the door.
Is this the 'Garden door' or yet a third door leading to the kitchen wing?
I never had much difficulty with this issue. I had envisaged a hall leading right across the house, with the main entrance at one end, the stairs coming down, probably to a point near the front door, and a garden door at the rear.
There is yet another door to the kitchen up a flight of steps from the yard (PM p 252), presumably on the other side.
Perhaps unusually in a Lake District house people seem to use the front door as a matter of course - Captain Flint in WH, Dick in PP. It was probably the most accessible from the road and led into the hall and so to all other main rooms. Certainly after the burglary in PM the lights behind the door were visible from the road.
Cook must have had her own accomodation, probably over the kitchen and reached by stairs, but there is no indication that this connected to the main rooms in the house. She does not seem to have been disturbed by the commotion following the burglary.