Story & Photos By Stan Wawer
Bucolic fells and dales, lakes, tarns, hamlets and centuries-old stone walls, including Hadrian’s, sprinkle England’s North Country. But the region’s cornerstone is its literary heritage.
This is the land of William Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter and the Bronte sisters. The Lake District inspired the poetry of Wordsworth and the writings and drawings of Potter.
Two of Wordsworth’s homes are open to the public — Dove Cottage in lovely Grasmere, Cumbria, and Rydal Mount near Ambleside, Cumbria. He lived in Dove Cottage from 1799 to 1808, his most prolific and important years as a poet. It was also here in the cottage that his Dorothy wrote her famous Grasmere Journals and where the writer Thomas de Quincey lived between 1809 and 1835. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, William Hazlitt and Robert Southey were among many who visited.
More than 90 percent of Wordsworth’s surviving manuscripts are now in the collection of the Wordsworth Trust, along with the works of more than 4,000 other writers and artists. The museum and Jerwood Centre hold the only Designated Collection Cumbria — recognized for its national and international importance.
“If Wordsworth hadn’t been a success as a poet, he would have been a landscape gardener,” said Peter Elkington, curator at Rydal, Wordsworth’s best-loved family home for the greater part of his life from 1813 to his death in 1850 at the age of 80.
It is at Rydal that Wordsworth wrote many of his poems, revised and improved much of his earlier works and published the final version of his most famous poem “Daffodils.”
“Rydal is the only property where you can see the biggest lake (Windemere) and the smallest lake (Rydal) in the area,” Elkington said.
Wordsworth built a summerhouse that was reached by a series of terraces. The summerhouse offered 180-degree vistas of the lakes and the area. It’s where he would go with many of his friends including American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson of the Concord, Mass. Emersons.
“Emerson was about 34 when he came here and Wordsworth was 74,” Elkington said. “Emerson writes about the time he came here for tea. Wordsworth says, ‘Let’s go out to the garden.’ Along the terrace as they are walking, Wordsworth starts reciting poetry and Emerson says he started to chuckle to himself. He listens to the poetry and says, ‘What am I doing here. I came to listen and learn about the romantics and I’m in the company of one of the world’s finest poets and I’m not paying attention.’ He stops to listen and said it was the best advice he ever gave himself.”
It was here at Rydal that I sat in Wordsworth’s favorite rocker by the fireplace and sipped mediocre Bordeaux. I had a rather large grin on my face for a photo opportunity. Looking at the photo now, I think perhaps a more poetic look would have been more appropriate.
Wordsworth was the poet laureate to Queen Victoria, an honor he originally refused. He eventually accepted but never wrote a poem for the queen.
A portrait of Wordsworth hangs over the fireplace. The chancellor at the University of Pennsylvania commissioned famous American portrait artist Henry Inman to paint Wordsworth. Inman spent three months at Rydal. He took the painting back to the University of Pennsylvania where it still hangs today. Wordsworth’s wife, Mary, loved the portrait so much that she asked Inman to paint a copy. Although he was 74 at the time, Wordsworth asked his wife to ask Inman to reduce the size of his nose.
“He was very aware of his nose. It was quite large,” Elkington said. “Inman finished the copy and now that one is hanging here. The one Inman painted in England is in America the one painted in America is here in England.”
Wordsworth used a cutlass chair to write his poetry. There is a cutlass chair on display at both Dove Cottage and Rydal. The cutlass chair enabled men wearing swords to sit down comfortably. Its unusual shape meant that it could be put alongside a flat surface for writing. Many of Wordsworth’s poems began in note form and were later transcribed, usually by one of the women in the household. Wordsworth also liked to compose poetry outdoors: he could remember many lines at a time before he needed to sit in the chair to write them down. When poems were complete, Wordsworth would read them aloud to his family and friends.
Beatrix Potter purchased Hill Top in 1905 partly with the earnings from her first book, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” The book has never been out of print since it was first published. Over the next few years the house, garden, farm, animals, village and surrounding countryside gave inspiration for some of her stories, including the illustrations.
Her stories provided the revenue for her later farming activities and land purchases. Potter was a determined conservationist and when she died in 1943, she left her 14 farms to the National Trust to ensure a living landscape in the Lake District.
Hill Top is a small and popular house. Tours began at 10:30 a.m.
The World of Beatrix Potter attraction in Bowness-on-Windemere has hit new heights in popularity since the 2006 movie “Miss Potter,” which starred Oscar winner Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.
“Beatrix Potter is one of the Lake District’s great heroes,” said Richard Foster, general manager of the World of Beatrix Potter. “This has been a great year for us. Since the launch of the film visitors are up from about 35,000 a year to more than 100,000. About 20 percent of the people said they came because of the film.”
Beatrix Potter was cremated and her ashes were secretly scattered by her farm manager near Hill Top Farm in the village of Near Sawrey in Cumbria.
The short, tragic and unhappy lives of Charlotte Bronte and her literary siblings, Emily and Ann, produced some of the best-loved and popular classics ever written. Charlotte’s most famous books were “Jane Eyre” and “Shirley,” while Emily wrote one book, the haunting and unforgettable “Wuthering Heights,” and Anne’s novels include “Agnes Grey” and the “Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
The parsonage in the attractive village of Haworth, West Yorkshire where they lived with their father and troubled and wayward brother, Branwell, is now a museum and is exactly how the family left it.
The parsonage is only a short distance from the wild, windswept Pennine moors described in their novels.
The Bronte Way footpath, which starts near Birstall in Kilees and ends at Padiham, Lancashire, winds through many places, which inspired the sisters’ writings.
Charlotte Bronte visited Oakwell Hall in Batley, West Yorkshire, and the house was immortalized as Fieldhead in her novel “Shirley.” Thornton, a small village on the outskirts of Bradford, is the birthplace of the Brontes.
The Pennine Way National Trail passes Top Withins, a desolate ruin high above Haworth, which is reputed to be the setting for Heathcliff’s moorland farmstead in “Wuthering Heights.”
A short walk from the village of Stanbury is Ponden Hall, which is widely believed to be the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange in “Wuthering Heights.” Nearby is the picturesque Bronte falls, the Bronte Bridge and the Bronte stone chair where, it is said, the sisters took turns to sit and write their first stories.
The three sisters died young. Emily dies in 1848 at age 30, Anne a year later at age 29 and Charlotte in 1855 at age 38.
J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” may have written the final parts of “The Lord of the Rings” while staying in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. Tolkien was familiar with the area from visits to his son at Stonyhurst College between 1942 and 1947 and some believe that it was a further source of inspiration for earlier parts of the work, attributing The Old Forest to Mitton Wood, Clitheroe and Hobbiton to the village of Hurst Green.
When you read the eloquent lines of 19th-century poet John Keats it is hard to remember that this passionate writer was only 26 when he died. Yet this restless soul left a legacy of memorable poems, odes and sonnets.
Keats loved the North Country. In 1818 he embarked on a long walking tour of Northern England with his friend Charles Brown.
“I cannot forget the joy, the rapture of my friend when he suddenly became sensible to the full effect of the mountain scenery when the lake of Windemere at once came into view. All was enchantment to us both,” Brown wrote of Keats’ first impression of Bowness in the Lake District.
The North Country, including the Lake District, also offers a landscape of amazing natural beauty. Explore stately homes, glorious gardens and wander around the ancient heritage sites.
It’s a journey well spent.
Where to Stay
The Waterhead Hotel: Luxury Lake District hotel on the shores of Lake Windermere. Walk to quaint Ambleside village, with its excellent restaurants and pubs. Waterhead is the area’s first four-star townhouse hotel. It has 41 contemporary bedrooms. Lake view bay restaurant and bar. Full use of leisure club one mile away. Web site: www.elh.co.uk/hotels/waterhead/index.aspx. About $94 to $254 a night, depending on rate of exchange.
There are a number of other outstanding hotels, inns and B&Bs throughout the North Country and Lake District. Visit www.visitcumbria.com/hotels.htm.
(All information is accurate at the time of publication but prices, dates and other details are all subject to change. Confirm all information before making any travel arrangements.)
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