Dove Cottage facts for kids
Dove Cottage is a special house in the beautiful Lake District of England, near a village called Grasmere. It's famous because the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth lived there for over eight years, from 1799 to 1808. During this time, William wrote many of his most well-known poems, like "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also known as "Daffodils") and parts of his long poem, The Prelude.
William Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802. She and her sister joined the family at Dove Cottage. As their family grew with three children, the cottage became too small. So, the Wordsworths moved out in 1808 to find a bigger home. Later, another writer, Thomas De Quincey, lived there for many years.
In 1890, a group called the Wordsworth Trust bought the cottage. They opened it to the public as a writer's home museum in 1891. The house still looks much like it did when the Wordsworths lived there. The site also has the Jerwood Centre, which holds old writings, books, and art, plus a museum that opened in 1981.
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A Look Back: Before Wordsworth
Dove Cottage was built a long time ago, in the early 1600s. It was right next to the main road that connected towns like Ambleside and Keswick. It was probably built to be a pub or inn. The first record of it, from 1617, calls it the "Dove and Olive." It stayed a pub, sometimes called the "Dove and Olive Branch," until it closed in 1793. William Wordsworth even mentioned the old pub in his 1806 poem, "The Waggoner".
The cottage is made from local stone. Its walls are painted white with limewash, and the roof is made of slate. There are four rooms downstairs and four upstairs. The ground floor rooms still have their original oak panels and slate floors. These were common in well-built houses in the Lake District back then.
Wordsworth's Time at the Cottage
William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth in 1770. He knew the Lake District well from his childhood. He left to study at Cambridge University in 1787 and then traveled around Britain and Europe for 12 years.
William first saw Dove Cottage in 1799 while walking with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. William and his sister Dorothy were very close as children, but they had lived apart for many years. William wanted to find a permanent home for them. Dove Cottage was empty and available to rent. They moved in on December 20, 1799, paying just £5 a year!
Downstairs, the main living room was called the "houseplace" or "kitchen-parlour". It had a cooking range and a window seat. This room was used for daily meals. A smaller room next to it was Dorothy's bedroom. There was a separate kitchen for cooking and a small larder for storing food. The Wordsworths hired a neighbor, Molly Fisher, to help with washing and cooking.
Upstairs, the room above the houseplace was William's study. It had lovely views of the meadows and the lake. William used it for writing his poems and sometimes for light meals or entertaining guests. The other three rooms were bedrooms. The smallest bedroom was later used as a nursery for William and Mary's children. In 1800, they covered the walls of this small room with newspapers to help keep it warm. There was no running water inside the house, and the toilet was outside in the garden. William and Dorothy loved their garden and orchard behind the house. They called it their "little nook of mountain-ground" and kept it looking wild and natural.
William became an important part of a group of Romantic poets in the Lake District, known as the Lake Poets. Robert Southey lived nearby in Keswick. Both Southey and Coleridge visited Dove Cottage often. The Wordsworths also welcomed other famous visitors like Walter Scott, Humphry Davy, and Charles and Mary Lamb.
William Wordsworth's money situation improved in 1802. This allowed him to marry his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson, later that year. Dove Cottage became their first home as a married couple. William's sister Dorothy and Mary's sister Sara also lived there. William and Mary's first three children were born in the cottage: John (1803), Dora (1804), and Thomas (1806).
Dorothy kept a detailed journal during their years at Dove Cottage. This journal was published in 1897 as The Grasmere Journal. It shares many personal details about their daily life and their visitors. William often found ideas for his poems in Dorothy's journal. For example, an entry from 1802 about daffodils near Ullswater inspired his famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804.
Dove Cottage eventually became too small for the growing Wordsworth family and their many visitors. They moved to Allan Bank in Grasmere in May 1808. William had not liked this house when it was first built. They moved again in 1810 to the Old Rectory in Grasmere. Finally, in 1813, they moved to a much larger home called Rydal Mount. They rented Rydal Mount for 46 years, until Mary's death in 1859. William had passed away nine years earlier. Rydal Mount is now also open to the public.
After the Wordsworths Left
Thomas De Quincey, a friend of the Wordsworths, moved into Dove Cottage in 1809. He had often stayed with the Wordsworths since 1807 and greatly admired William. De Quincey married a local farmer's daughter and lived in the cottage until 1820. He made some changes to the cottage and its garden, which upset the Wordsworth family. As his own family grew, he had to move to a larger house, but he continued to rent Dove Cottage and store his books there until 1835. Eventually, money problems forced him to leave the cottage for good.
After De Quincey, many different people rented Dove Cottage. The name "Dove Cottage" was first officially recorded in the 1851 census. In the 1860s, the house had a sign that said "Dixon’s Lodgings: Wordsworth’s Cottage." In the late 1880s, Edmund Lee bought the cottage. He was a writer and wrote the first biography of Dorothy Wordsworth while living there.
The Wordsworth Trust bought the cottage for £650 in 1890. This Trust was created by Reverend Stopford Brooke to protect this important place connected to Wordsworth's works. The cottage kept the name "Dove Cottage" after the Trust bought it.
Dove Cottage Today
The Wordsworth Trust has kept Dove Cottage open to the public since July 1891. The cottage still looks much like it did when the Wordsworths lived there. The Trust has also brought the garden back to the "wild" look that the Wordsworths loved. Many people visit Dove Cottage each year, about 70,000 visitors!
In 2020 and 2021, the Wordsworth Grasmere site was improved. Besides fixing up the cottage, new activities were added at the museum. There are also new outdoor areas to explore and a new café.
A stone from Dove Cottage is even part of the "Walk of Fame" at Rollins College in Florida, which has stones from places linked to famous people.
Wordsworth Museum
Next to Dove Cottage is the Wordsworth Museum. It displays old writings, pictures of landscapes, and portraits. The museum started in 1935 in a small converted barn. It was opened by the Poet Laureate, John Masefield. The museum moved to a nearby coach house in 1981.
The Jerwood Centre is a newer building that holds the collections of the Wordsworth Trust. It won awards for its design and was opened in 2005 by the poet and Nobel Prize winner, Seamus Heaney. The site also has a café and gift shop that opened in 2021 after being redesigned by Purcell (architects) and Nissen Richards Studio.
See also
- Grade I listed buildings in Cumbria
- Listed buildings in Lakes, Cumbria
