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Dove Cottage

Alex Saint

Visit now

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

Rose Condo
LiteratureKendal
Verbalise at Kendal Brewery Arts

Rose Condo is a multi-award-winning poet and spoken word artist, who carefully blends poetry and prose to create live shows she performs with aplomb.

From £11.00
A large mechanical puppet controlled by multiple people. Encounter Festival in Preston
FestivalsLancashire
Encounter Festival in Preston

Expect a jam-packed day of outdoor performance, live music, family fun – plus Preston’s iconic Torchlight Procession and fireworks finale.

Free entry
–
MusicBlackburn
Confessional Festival

Blackburn’s Confessional Festival turns ten, celebrating with two days of live music set beneath the stained glass and vaulted stonework of Holy Trinity Church.

From £20
See all events

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?

See all places

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Cockermouth and West Cumbria

Our guide to West Cumbria, with its independent, industrial streak, and Wordsworth’s birthplace, Cockermouth.
Allan Bank, Grasmere, image courtesy of Visit Cumbria
South Lakes, Cumbria

No trip to Cumbria is complete without a visit to the South Lakes, Coniston and Grizedale among them. Here’s our guide.
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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
Things to do in Kendal

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.
Kendal and Sedbergh, Cumbria

Packed with fantastic places to visit and a wide range of high-quality restaurants, bars and pubs, there’s loads to do in Kendal and Sedbergh.

Culture Guides

Author portrait
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...

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

This season’s theatre is gloriously eclectic: from radical cabaret and reinvented classics to new musicals and boundary-pushing performance.

Cinema in the North

This month we recommend a season of Film noir, cult Australian movies and a huge celebration of DIY community cinema.

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Music in the North

10 fresh shows across Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, threading together noise, ritual, euphoria and release in all their messy, beautiful forms.