Dove Cottage

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.

[2] Dove Cottage was built in the early 17th century, beside the main road from Ambleside in the south to Keswick in the north.

The history of the cottage 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".

William first encountered Dove Cottage when on a walking tour of the Lake District with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1799.

A separate kitchen was used for the more arduous task of the domestic routine, with the fourth room being a small buttery, used as a larder.

The walls of the small bedroom were covered with newspapers in 1800 as an attempt at insulation (later removed, but copies were put back in the 1970s).

William and Dorothy took particular pleasure in the garden and orchard behind the house, their "little nook of mountain-ground",[6] which was deliberately arranged in an informal "wild" state.

The Wordsworths were also visited at Dove Cottage by Walter Scott, Humphry Davy, and Charles and Mary Lamb.

The increasing size of his family forced him to move to Fox Ghyll, but he continued to rent Dove Cottage, and store books there, until 1835.

The first usage of the name "Dove Cottage" is recorded in the 1851 census, when Christopher Newby, Coal Agent, resided with his wife and six children.

Lee's son, also called Edmund, was a novelist and poet, serving for some time as the Secretary of The Poetry Society.

The Trust was formed by the Reverend Stopford Brooke with the express purpose of preserving this place, which was so closely bound with Wordsworth's works.

In addition to renovations at the cottage, the project provided new activities at the museum, new outdoor spaces to explore as well as a new café.

It was founded in 1935 in a small converted barn at Syke Side and opened by Poet Laureate, John Masefield.

The Jerwood Centre, an award-winning new building to house the collections of the Wordsworth Trust, was opened near Dove Cottage in 2005 by the poet and Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney.

It also operates a cafe and gift shop which opened in 2021 after a redevelopment by Purcell (architects) and Nissen Richards Studio.