Wordsworth Afternoon Tour

This half day tour will take you to places associated with the poet William Wordsworth in just one afternoon.

The afternoon starts with a short drive out of Ambleside to Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s best loved family home from 1813 until his death in 1850. The house and its gardens are currently closed to visitors, so we see the house from its gate while your guide tells the story of the family’s years there – including the field of daffodils William planted nearby in memory of his daughter Dora.

Time and weather permitting, we may also visit the beautiful and tranquil Rydal Hall Gardens, which are free to enter. Built in the 16th Century, Rydal Hall was the home of the le Fleming family, William Wordsworth's landlords at Rydal Mount. The house has subsequently been much altered, including the addition of a Victorian south range. The formal garden at Rydal Hall was designed in 1909 by the Arts and Crafts garden architect Thomas Mawson. It is a splendid example of the work of the leading Arts and Crafts garden designer, whose work is world-famous. The garden is of particular historic interest for the extensive use of exposed aggregate precast concrete, instead of more usual stone, to form the main elements in the design, a very early use of concrete in this way. The Carlisle Diocese in association with The Cumbria Gardens Trust and in consultation with English Heritage are restoring this lovely formal garden. There are mosses, native flora and trees, including a 500-year-old sweet chestnut tree with a girth of 36 feet. From the formal garden the sound of rushing water can be heard. Water crashes over a series of high waterfalls down a rocky ravine, through the banks of a wooded garden. The oldest 'viewing house' in the country was built below the lower fall in 1668.

We now move on to Dove Cottage on the outskirts of Grasmere village. Dove Cottage is where William Wordsworth set up home with his sister Dorothy in 1799. Entry to Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum is included in the price of this tour.

William married his wife Mary in 1802, and she and her sister joined William and Dorothy at Dove Cottage. William and his family spent over eight years of "plain living, but high thinking" at Dove Cottage. During this period, William wrote much of the poetry for which he is remembered today, including his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Ode to Duty", "My Heart Leaps Up" and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", together with parts of his autobiographical epic, The Prelude.

Finally we arrive at the pretty village of Grasmere. We stop here for a while to see the locations which were so important to William Wordsworth. His family quickly expanded, with the arrival of three children in four years, and so they left Dove Cottage in 1808 to seek larger lodgings at Allan Bank on a hill overlooking the village and then 3 years later, Grasmere Rectory both of which your guide will point out to you on the village tour. You will also have a chance to see St Oswald's Church in the village and the Wordsworth family graves which are one of the most visited places in the Lake District.

Grasmere is also the name of a lake just outside the village itself. 'The loveliest spot that man hath ever found' is how William Wordsworth described this most beautiful area of the Lake District. The small island in the middle of the lake was a favorite place which he often visited while he was living at Dove Cottage.

Our road now heads south toward Ambleside passing Nab Cottage. This was once home to Thomas De Quincey and later, Hartley Coleridge, the son of William Wordsworth's old friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hartley rented the house from 1840 until his death there in 1849.