The City Adventurers visit to Dove Cottage, home of William Wordsworth, and the accompanying museum to his life. This is a beautifully preserved pocket of literary history in the Lake District National Park and comprises two distinct, yet complementary, experiences: Dove Cottage and the modern Wordsworth Museum and grounds.
William Wordsworth arrived in Grasmere in 1799. Aged 29, he was largely unknown and writing innovative poetry in a new style. Whilst living at Dove Cottage with his family, Wordsworth wrote many of his greatest poems. His sister Dorothy, who lived with his family, kept her Grasmere journal there.
What is Dove Cottage?
Dove Cottage is the humble, whitewashed Lakeland stone cottage where William Wordsworth lived with his wife, Mary and their children plus his sister Dorothy from 1799 to 1808.
This was the period of his greatest creativity—the years of “plain living, but high thinking”—when he wrote some of his most famous works, including I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils), the Ode: Intimations of Immortality, and parts of his epic The Prelude. Dorothy, his constant companion and muse, also penned her fascinating Grasmere Journals here, a vivid record of their daily life and observations of the landscape that inspired them.
Inside the cottage, you’ll find the simple kitchen, the living room where they gathered, and William’s study.
Outside the Cottage is The Wild Garden
The fellside garden and orchard behind the cottage have been restored to the ‘domestic slip of mountain-ground’ that William and Dorothy lovingly tended and where they found daily inspiration.
Wordsworth Grasmere houses an award-winning Museum and exhibition space.
The Jerwood Centre is a state-of-the-art library and archive and is home to over 90% of William Wordsworth’s original verse manuscripts, Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere journal, and many more letters and journals written by the family.
The museum collection includes rare editions by Wordsworth’s contemporaries such as Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft. It also has an art collection containing over 9,000 items, and features works by major artists such as John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. There is the option of searching the collection online.
The museum also has a Viewing Station, allowing you to appreciate the spectacular panoramic views of the Grasmere Vale that Wordsworth described as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found.”
Plan your visit to Wordsworth Grasmere
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The UK based Social Club for people who love visiting shows, exploring new places, discovering new things and solving mysteries.
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