Dove Cottage in Ambleside, Cumbria, United Kingdom | Museum

Welcome to Dove Cottage, part of the Wordsworth Trust  / Dove Cottage Museum in Grasmere Ambleside, in the United Kingdom.

..where the Dove and Olive-Bough

Once hung, a poet harbours now,

A simple water-drinking Bard...

Dove Cottage was the home of William Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808,  the years of his supreme work as a poet.

As with many old buildings, the early history of Dove Cottage is difficult to trace accurately; although the date of its construction is not recorded, this is likely to have been during the early 17th century.  Its original use is also unknown, but during the second half of the 18th century it became an inn called the Dove and Olive.  Many of the building's distinctive features date from this time; its white-washed walls, flagstone floors and dark, wood panelling.  However, in the early 1790s, the Dove and Olive was closed down. It seems likely that the building remained empty for the next few years, until William and Dorothy Wordsworth arrived as tenants on 20th December 1799.

In the building's time as a pub, the downstairs bedroom of Dove Cottage would have been used as a drinking room, but for the Wordsworths, it was always used as a bedroom. Initially this is where Dorothy slept and it would have been here that she wrote much of her 'Grasmere Journals'. In the summer of 1802 this became William's bedroom in preparation for his marriage to Mary Hutchinson in October. The washstand displayed in this room belonged to William and Mary and is a rare example of a double washstand.When William and Dorothy arrived they decided to use the upstairs bedroom as their sitting room.   Without the dark panelling of the rooms downstairs, this room was naturally brighter making it a much better place for reading, writing and entertaining guests which includedSir Walter Scott in 1805, Thomas DeQuincey in 1807, and their most frequent visitor and close friends, the poetSamuel Taylor Coleridge. There was also the advantage of the view. In their time there were no buildings on the opposite side of the lane, (which was then the main road through the Lake District), giving them an uninterrupted view of Grasmere lake and much of the valley.

Explaining the aims and ideals of the first board of trustees, responsible for opening Dove Cottage to the public, Stopford Brooke wrote, in 1890:

'There is no place, ... which has so many thoughts and memories as this belonging to our poetry; none at least in which they are so closely bound up with the poet and the poems ... In every part of this little place [Wordsworth] has walked with his sister and wife or talked with Coleridge. And it is almost untouched. Why should we not try and secure it, ... for the eternal possession of those who love English poetry all over the world.'

Today, about 70,000 people visit Dove Cottage, a Grade 1 listed building in Ambleside, every year. All visitors are offered a guided tour, telling the story of the house and family. Many of the Wordsworths' household items, furniture, family possessions and portraits are displayed.  The garden (open, weather permitting), Wordsworth's 'domestic slip of mountain', has been restored to the half wild state that he and Dorothy lovingly created from local plants and materials.