A place re-imagined: Dove cottage, Grasmere

Project outline

This studentship focussed on Dove Cottage - the home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth from 1799 to 1808 - to explore the relationship between person, place and space over time.

Achievements

From June 2007, Polly worked as a part-time volunteer at the Wordsworth Trust, and also lived on site in Grasmere, which allowed excellent access to a host of resources, not only the Trust archives, but also the ability to observe the day-to-day operation of the Trust, and the tourist activities around it. These observations were recorded in a research diary.

Short interviews with visitors onsite often revealed unexpected responses. The majority of visitors interviewed (approximately 90%), when asked whether they would do anything new or different as a result of their visit, responded that they would read, re-read or re-visit the Romantic poets, because of the interest excited by the museum/cottage tour. Other interesting responses came from staff and artists/writers-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust, around the issue of home, and feelings of belonging in Grasmere, particularly pertinent in relation to Wordsworth's poem ‘Home at Grasmere', and the construction by Wordsworth and his later followers of a mythos of Home at Grasmere.

In December 2008 Polly's poem Colony Collapse Disorder, inspired by her time in Grasmere won 1st prize in the Troubadour Coffee House Poetry Competition.

Polly was awarded her PhD in 2011.