A Place Re-imagined: Dove Cottage, Grasmere

Aims and Objectives

This studentship focuses 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.

For more details please go to the project summary document

Progress and Highlights

Year 1

The period of on-site research and work with my partner organisation ( The Wordsworth Trust) was begun. From June 2007 the research student 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.

Year 2

Interesting findings so far have mainly involved unexpected visitor responses, as recorded during short interviews on site. 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 have come 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.