St. Anne’s Hospital Appleby
The Almshouses at Appleby-in-Westmorland, known as St Anne’s Hospital, was founded in the mid-17th century by the formidable Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery.
Lady Anne was born in 1590. She had known Court life under Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. In 1653, she established these almshouses for “twelve sisters and a mother” as a charitable act to help the poor widows in Appleby.
Lady Anne was a strong, independent woman, who lived at nearby Appleby Castle, who fought relentlessly for 40 years for the right to inherit her father’s estates and ensured the almshouses remain today.
St Anne’s was envisioned as a place of peace and security for women in need.
Picture a quaint courtyard lined with brightly coloured cottages, each one a home for “sisters” – single ladies or widows.
It’s a testament to Lady Anne‘s generosity and foresight, a beautiful act of charity that continues to this very day.
Stepping Through the Archway
Once you step through the arched doorway on Boroughgate, you are transported back in time.
These purpose-built almshouses are held in Trust for the benefit of single ladies.
Each cottage has its charm, some even boasting gardens that lead down to the picturesque River Eden.
The building itself consists of a quadrangle of small self-contained dwellings enclosed in a cobbled courtyard with seats and a fountain.
There’s a delightful chapel on the grounds, a place for quiet reflection.
The most amazing thing? St Anne’s is not just a museum relic.
It’s a fully functioning almshouse, offering affordable housing to thirteen women.
It’s a living testament to Lady Anne’s vision, a place where tradition and care for those in need beautifully co-exist.
A Story I Was Told in the Courtyard
I have to admit, it was standing in that very courtyard, listening to the fountain and looking up at the chapel windows, that an Appleby local first told me the story I’m about to share — and I’ve never quite been able to get it out of my head since.
According to this resident, one of the “twelve sisters and a mother” who lived under Lady Anne’s charity, generations ago, was a woman known locally as Madam D’Estrange.
She’s said to have caught the eye of Kirkby Stephen‘s own self-appointed local bard, John Close — better known in his day as “Poet Close.“
Close was a real figure worth knowing a little about: born in 1816 in Swaledale, he made his name (and, for a time, a Civil List pension, before it was rather publicly withdrawn amid mockery of his verse) writing about the people and doings of the district, selling his pamphlets to Lake District visitors right up until his death in 1891.
It’s exactly the sort of local colour he’d have gone looking for.
By the account I was given, Madam D’Estrange was in her eighties, but still remarkably spritely, and the other women of the almshouse regarded her with real suspicion.
She had clearly known better days — well-educated, well-spoken, entirely out of keeping with a woman who had fallen on hard times, which in a small community was enough on its own to set tongues wagging.
What sealed her reputation, though, was a visitor.
Four times a year, without fail, a strange gentleman dressed head to toe in black would arrive in Appleby to call on her.
He always lodged at the Old King’s Head, and he never once brought any luggage — no bag, no case, nothing.
He said little, and what he did say struck people as odd.
It didn’t take long for the town to decide there could only be one explanation: he was the Devil himself, come to visit his own.
Madam D’Estrange didn’t help matters by keeping two black tomcats and a raven — a genuinely remarkable bird, apparently, who could talk, and who went by the name of Bob.
Bob was allowed to fly free around the town, and more than one “ghost” ever heard rattling about in a local chimney turned out, eventually, to be him.
He was also, by all accounts, an unrepentant thief.
He was blamed for flying straight through the vicar’s open window and making off with his sermon notes, for snatching at least one unfortunate gentleman’s wig, and for stealing the mayor’s gold watch while it sat with the watchmaker for repair.
Pies and custards left cooling on a windowsill never stood a chance.
Eventually, the town’s patience ran out, and Madam D’Estrange and her strange household were threatened with the tar barrel — no small warning.
So, to save herself and her pets, she clipped Bob’s wings and had a small chain fitted to his leg, tying him to his perch for good.
And that, so the story goes, was the end of Bob’s reign as the terror of Appleby.
I can’t promise you it’s all true — good local stories rarely come with footnotes — but standing in that courtyard, under the same chapel windows Madam D’Estrange would have known, it wasn’t at all hard to believe.
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Updated August 6th 2026