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Dove Cottage

Alex Saint

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Dove Cottage

Dove Cottage, Grasmere, LA22 9SQ
+44(0)15394 35544
Website
  • Monday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Tuesday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Wednesday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Thursday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Friday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Saturday9:30am - 5:30pm
  • Sunday9:30am - 5:30pm

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

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Dove Cottage, Grasmere, image courtesy of venue
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There aren’t many that don’t associate the Lake District with Britain’s best known poet William Wordsworth. Each year thousands pay homage to Dove Cottage, a little cottage tucked away near Grasmere which inspired some of the greatest poetry in the English language, but don’t let the crowds deter you as the Wordsworth Trust has sensitively maintained an evocative experience.

Alongside the cottage, museum and a pretty garden is The Jerwood Centre – an award winning new building holding an impressive archive of Wordsworth’s verse drafts, including The Prelude, along with letters, journals and work by other writers like Coleridge and de Quincey and painters Turner, Constable and Girtin.

If Wordsworth and the Lakes were an inspiration to his contemporaries, it remains so today and poetry is a living thing here, with readings, workshops and events filling up the local cultural calendar.

What's on near Dove Cottage
LiteratureWest Yorkshire
Poetry at the Dusty Miller

Poetry at the Dusty Miller is a now regular night with invited readers, organised by poets Carola Luther and Ian Humphreys in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub.

Free entry
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Where to go near Dove Cottage

Cumbria
Museum
Wordsworth Grasmere

From book launches to writing groups to poetry nights, there’s always something going on at Wordsworth Grasmere.

Cumbria
Museum
The Wordsworth Museum

Next door to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s first family home, is the Wordsworth Museum, which houses an unsurpassed collection of the Wordsworths’ letters, journals and poems.

Cumbria
Shop
Sam Read Bookseller

Award-winning small bookshop in the Lake District. Est. by Sam Read in 1887. Run by Will Smith and Polly Atkin.

Forest Side Restaurant
Cumbria
Restaurant
Forest Side Restaurant

We love the fantastic Forest Side Restaurant. Attached to the historic Forest Side Hotel in Grasmere, this is one of the best places to eat in Cumbria.

Allan Bank, Grasmere, image courtesy of Visit Cumbria
Cumbria
Museum
Allan Bank

Once home to William Wordsworth, this historic villa now combines a small, informal art gallery with a giant indoor mural space.

The Merzbarn today, courtesy Littoral Arts Trust
Cumbria
Gallery
Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbarn

Tucked away in a remote corner of the Lake District is Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbarn, an artistic epitaph to the avant garde ‘godfather of modern art’.

The Armitt Museum
Cumbria
Gallery
The Armitt Museum

Full of interesting and unusual objects, The Armitt is a museum that shares the history and heritage of Ambleside and its people.

Cumbria
Restaurant
Fellini’s

Fellini’s does fancy ‘Vegeterranean’ food and films. What better way to treat yourself after a hard tramp in the Lake District?

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Our guide to West Cumbria, with its independent, industrial streak, and Wordsworth’s birthplace, Cockermouth.
Allan Bank, Grasmere, image courtesy of Visit Cumbria
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Things to do in Penrith and the Surrounding Area

With the picturesque Lake District to the west and the sweeping ridge of the Pennines to the east, Penrith is a stunning cultural destination.
York Castle Museum
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Kendal is a key destination in the Lake District, packed with fantastic places to visit as well as a wide range of high-quality restaurants, bars and pubs.
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Our guide to the best things to do in the beautiful Eden Valley in Cumbria, which stretches from Sedbergh to Penrith.
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August brings a huge LGBTQ+ film festival, plus a reggae classic and a spotlight on Japanese animation.

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Literature Events in the North

Our latest round-up features plenty of one-off live literature events to wrap your ears about, so get those diaries ticking over...