Posted by Tom Napier on June 08, 2014 at 11:32:22 user Didymus.
In Reply to: Re: Ransome's Sketch - Re: Beckfoot Layout posted by Peter Ceresole on June 08, 2014 at 10:41:07:
My impression is that "A professional man's country home" would be built by the same people that built farmhouses using the same local materials, e.g. mortared field-stone. The result would be larger to accommodate servants and more finely finished inside, say with paneled walls rather than plaster, but would look similar from the outside. It's the "cotton barons" with money to burn and an urge to upstage their neighbours who would import skilled masons and use fancy building stone.
Here's an example, a farmhouse which happens to be the first one I found that is roughly the right size and appearance. (It has a wing tacked on to the long side, not one end.) It's on Sow How Lane, about a mile east of the bottom end of Windermere. Google coordinates, 54.280905, -2.927611. Looking due east in Streetview shows what I mean. (Streetview's coverage of Sow How Lane stops at the farmyard.)