Luckily Armitt eventually ignored Ruskin's advice and began regular contributions to the Manchester City News in 1877.

[1] She was assisted in her studies by a scholarship from Trinity College, Cambridge[dubious – discuss] and by becoming a reader at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

[4] In 1886 Armitt and Sophie retired to Hawkshead, near where Annie was already living, and continued their cultural interests, talking to artists, writers and educationalists like Charlotte Mason and Frances Arnold.

By 1894 Annie was a widow and had moved in with her sisters[3] and Armitt was so ill with heart trouble that she was prevented from travelling far.

[7] On 8 November 1912 a friend of the Armitts', Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, who was to co-found the National Trust, read his poem in celebration.

The poem starts: As in some inland solitude a shell Still gently whispers of its home, the deep, So from the world of being beyond all sleep Where those two happy sister spirits dwell...

[3] In 1916, Willingham Franklin Rawnsley finished editing Armitt's notes on local history, which she had partially researched at Rydal Hall.