Belle Isle (Windermere)
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Belle Isle is the largest of 18 islands on the lake Windermere in the English Lake District and the only one ever to have been inhabited. It is 1km in length. Belle Isle House, was built in 1774 to designs by John Plaw, it is unusual in that it is circular in plan, built of brick, three floors high with a four column portico.
The Roman governor at Ambleside built a villa on the island. It was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War. It was known locally as the Great Island ("great" originally meant big), but it was sold to Isabella Curwen for £1,720 and was renamed after her. The descendants of Isabella and her husband John Christian Curwen lived on the island until 1993.
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