Lake District writers' trail

Grasmere and Rydal: the Wordsworths

William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage on the edge of Grasmere from December 1799 to May 1808, and William wrote much of his best-known poetry there. ^[1] It has been a museum since 1891 and is run today as Wordsworth Grasmere, with a museum next door. ^{[1] [2]} The family later lived at Rydal Mount, between Grasmere and Ambleside. ^[1]

Base yourself in Ambleside and Grasmere.

Near Sawrey: Beatrix Potter

Hill Top, a seventeenth-century house in Near Sawrey near Hawkshead, was Beatrix Potter's home; she left it to the National Trust, and the garden is kept in the style of her illustrations. ^[3] See Coniston and Hawkshead and, across the lake, Windermere and Bowness.

Coniston: John Ruskin

Brantwood, above Coniston Water, is a house museum dedicated to the critic and artist John Ruskin, one of its last owners. ^[4]

Keswick: Coleridge and Southey

Greta Hall in Keswick was home to the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. ^[5] It is a private house; see it from outside, and use Keswick and Derwentwater as a base for the northern lakes.

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