Tag / William Wordsworth

Bringing Coleridge to Life: Three Extraordinary Years in Nether Stowey

It’s an idea that’s been simmering in my mind for some years now: to write the story of the three years that Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent in Somerset. I have always been interested in Coleridge and Wordsworth, an interest increased by reading “A Passionate Sisterhood” by Kathleen Jones, followed by any and every biography on Coleridge, Wordsworth and their circle of friends and relatives. When I retired...

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Coleridge in Love

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, literary critic and philosopher was born in Ottery St Mary in Devon in 1772. He was a man of huge intellect and many talents. With his energetic enthusiasm, magnetic personality and copious charm, he was attractive to men and women alike.  His was a complex character, given to marvellous sweeping ideas, flights of fancy and projects he started and often failed to finish. Nowadays we might  consider him to be bi-polar. He was unreliable, unable to keep to deadlines and always ready with an excuse. It is well-known he was also an addictive...

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Rainy Days in The Lakes

  My husband has a very convenient memory. He only remembers good times and good weather. Every year when he suggests a week in the lake District in June I remind him it always rains and every year he says “We had lovely weather last year, Look at the photographs if you don’t believe me!”  The photographs that were taken, of course, on the only two fine days of the entire week. In out twelve years of coming up to Cumbria we have stayed in various hotels and guest houses, the problem being that on wet days we confined either to our hotel...

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The Quantock Connection

  Last week we did our first stint as National Trust Volunteer Room Guides in Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey. The idea of being Room Guides evolved gradually. We visited Chartwell House, Churchill’s home, when we were staying with my brother in Sussex and the Room Guides were so helpful and knowledgeable...

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Wild West Wordsworth

Most people associate the Lake Poets with, well, the Lakes, of course. The English Lake District, that is. Ask them where Wordsworth lived and they’ll tell you: in Grasmere. Dove Cottage, Rydal Mount. If they’re officionadoes they’ll even mention Allen Bank, only recently restored to the National Trust and once again open to visitors. The Somerset connection is often forgotten. The odd few will know of Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey, but people rarely talk of nearby Alfoxden Park (variously spelled Alfoxdon and Alfoxton). Yet this was the home...

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Summer in the Lakes

We chose midsummer to go up to the Lake District on the assumption it might be warm and sunny. Regular visitors to this part of the world, however, will tell you this is rarely the case. Highly renowned as one of the wettest places in England, we have had very few hot sunny days in the ten years we have been going up there. Last year we were lucky: The fleeces and kagouls I had packed stayed in the car and I wished I had brought more t-shirts and shorts. This year though the rain began as soon as we reached Birmingham and continued solidly throughout...

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