Dove Cottage - Grasmere, Cumbria (Pvt)
Originally built in the first part of the seventeenth century, this small cottage near the side of Grasmere in the Lake District became the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy just before Christmas1799. The building had been previously used as the village inn and was only slightly modified during Wordsworth's residency.
Today the cottage is maintained by The Wordsworth Trust and short guided tours point out various highlights. The rooms are tiny and dark, but have a homely atmosphere, with most of the sparse furniture dating from Wordsworth's time and many personal items that belonged to him, such as his suitcase, ice-skates and a double wash-stand used by William and Mary.
On display both here and in the museum adjacent are various manuscripts, paintings and effects from the private and professional life of Wordsworth, and his friends Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey, the famous opium eater whose affection for the hospitality afforded him at Dove Cottage by the Wordsworths led him to take up tenancy here in 1809, after William and his extended family had moved to the nearby and larger Allen Bank in Grasmere village and then to Rydal Mount, along the road towards Ambleside, where they lived from 1813 until their deaths.
In Summer, Dove Cottage is surrounded by flowers, the steeply banked garden and climbing roses around the building having been a labour of love for William and Dorothy. In Winter, there are fewer visitors and bright, crackling fires inside, adding atmosphere to the dark paneling and slate floors.
There are only a small number of rooms, many of which had to be multi-functional, as Wordsworth's growing family and reputation led to many visitors and cramped sleeping space. Nevertheless, much of his finest poetry (for example Daffodils, Michael and The Prelude) was written here, composed either in his head while out walking the fells, or dictated straight to Dorothy or Mary in the sitting room. Evidence for the close bonds between brother and sister and then with Mary after the marriage in 1802, are apparent from the wonderful journals that Dorothy kept, recording not only the way her brother thought, acted and composed, but also the domestic chores they both carried out and the life of simple pleasures they led, amid natural scenes and humble surroundings. Their frequent visitors and active participation of village life are given due attention, from Dorothy's attendance at a pauper's funeral in 1800, up the hill towards Rydal, to sending off a parcel to Coleridge in 1802.
The Wordsworth family is buried in an unassuming family plot in the churchyard of St Oswald's church in the centre of Grasmere.
Find out which poet is buried where at the unique Poets Graves web site.