Depart Barrow-in-Furness this morning
and drive south through the delightful countryside of
the Lake District National Park. Continue on through
pretty villages and stunning panoramas to Rydal Mount,
where Wordsworth lived from 1813 to 1850. The house,
which still belongs to the poet’s descendents,
has seen little change since Wordsworth and his family
came to live there in 1813. Wordsworth was a keen landscape
gardener and there is time to wander through the delightful
gardens, which remain very much as he originally designed,
before you drive the short distance onto Dove Cottage.
Dove Cottage was the home of William Wordsworth from
1799 to 1808, the years of his supreme work as a poet.
The cottage is located in the hamlet of Town End, Grasmere,
a place and a landscape at the centre of the English
Lake District where the poet lived, wrote and found
inspiration. Here the Wordsworth Museum is located,
and displays some of the nation's greatest treasures
from the age of Romanticism including original manuscripts,
eighteenth and nineteenth century local landscapes,
portraits of Wordsworth, his contemporaries and family
possessions. Enjoy lunch in this delightful setting,
before continuing north on to Keswick, the main town
for the northern half of the Lake District. On arrival
there is some free time to independently explore Keswick,
located alongside the scenic shores of Derwentwater,
considered to be one of England’s finest lakes.
Your final destination today is Wordsworth House, located
in Cockermouth, itself a charming town of colourwashed
houses beside the river. A fine Georgian townhouse,
William Wordsworth was born here in 1770 and several
of the rooms still contain some of his personal effects.
The lovely terraced garden is mentioned in his autobiographical
poem The Prelude and today wander through the garden
at leisure, as Wordsworth would have done over 200 years
ago.
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