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Dove Cottage

Alex Saint
Dove Cottage, Grasmere, image courtesy of venue

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.

Dove CottageGrasmereLA22 9SQ View map
Telephone: +44(0)15394 35544 Visit Now

Accessibility

Upper floors not accessible by wheelchair; virtual tours available

Admission Charges

£8.25

Opening Hours

  • 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.

What's on near Dove Cottage

Tom Branfoot. Photo Eleanor Hall, Museum of the Home
LiteratureWest Yorkshire
Poetry at the Dusty Miller

Poetry at the Dusty Miller is a now regular night with invited readers, organised by Carcanet-published Carola Luther and Judith Willson in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub.

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

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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.

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