Beatrix Potter had always been passionately interested in 'real' animals, and after her marriage to William Heelis she was able to settle in the Lake District permanently, and devote herself almost entirely to her farming.

Beatrix took a very active part in caring for her Lake District farms. Dressed in her clogs, shawl and old tweed skirt, she helped with the hay making, waded through mud to unblock drains and searched the fells for lost sheep. She said she was at her happiest when she was with her farm animals.

With her shepherd, Tom Storey, she bred Herdwick sheep - a rare and threatened breed indigenous to the Lake District. She encouraged the revival of Herdwick sheep in all her farms, and her sheep won most of the major prizes at local shows. In 1943, Beatrix became the first woman to be elected President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders' Association, which was a great achievement and a sign of the high regard in which she was held by the local farming community.

(Photograph: Beatrix Potter with her ducklings at Hill Top, 1913. Courtesy of the National Trust.)