William Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage
Countless writers found inspiration in the Lake District, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, Hugh Walpole, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and his sister, Dorothy.
Wordsworth deemed the town of Grasmere “The loveliest spot that man hath ever found.” He first encountered Dove Cottage when on a walking tour of the Lake District with Coleridge in 1799. Built in the early 17th century beside Ambleside’s main road to Keswick, the stone home was origin- ally a public house named Dove and Olive. The cottage’s history is referred to in William’s 1806 poem, “The Waggoner,” in which the protagonist passes by “Where once the Dove and Olive-bough offered a greeting of good ale to all who entered Grasmere Vale.”
Wordsworth and his sister made Dove Cottage their home beginning in 1799. Wordsworth married his wife, Mary, in 1802, and she and her sister joined the household. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne were just two of the American writers who visited here. The family quickly expanded with the arrival of three children in four years, and the Wordsworths left Dove Cottage in 1808 to seek larger lodgings. Writer Thomas De Quincey then occupied the cottage for many years.
Dove Cottage (Grasmere, Ambleside LA22 9SH), still filled with original furnishings and personal belongings, has welcomed more than 70,000 visitors annually. Don’t miss the adjoining town of Grasmere, where you can enjoy a cream tea or lunch after visiting the town church and graveyard where the Wordsworths are buried. Staying with the local theme, you would do well to spend a night in The Wordsworth Hotel. The former Earl of Cadogan’s former shooting lodge has transformed into a comfortable country house hotel set within beautiful grounds and boasting a fine restaurant.
To learn more about Dove Cottage, log onto wordsworth.org.uk or ring +44 15394 35544.
TeaTime Contributing Editor Bruce Richardson is Master Tea Blender at Kentucky’s Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and coauthor of A Social History of Tea, available at elmwoodinn.com.
