WORDWORTH’S LAKES
The luminous landscape of the Lakeland Fells is still synonymous with the sublime poetry of William Wordsworth, 250 years after his birth. So how can you experience the Lakes as Wordsworth did? Simon Bainbridge walks you in the footsteps of a genius
To mark the 250th anniversary of the great poet’s birth, follow in his footsteps through the Lake District landscape that inspired his radical verse.
Standing on the elevated path of Loughrigg Terrace, gazing down on Grasmere’s glistening waters, it is easy to appreciate why this beautiful scene became one of the most inspiring locations in English poetry.
As a young boy, William Wordsworth first encountered this extraordinary view while exploring the hills near his school in
Hawkshead. The sight stopped him in his tracks, his eyes alighting on the valley’s crags and woody steeps, its church and stone cottages, and of course its lake, with its “one green Island and… winding shores”. “What happy fortune were it here to live,” he exclaimed; a wish echoed ever since by many who have stood and stared in the same spot.
Wordsworth nurtured this gleaming vision of Grasmere, in the heart of the
Lake District, as a treasured memory for two decades before he at last settled into Dove Cottage on the village’s outskirts in 1799, with his sister Dorothy. There he embarked on his greatest creative period, inviting us in his poetry to experience the spectacular and spiritual power of the
Lake District landscape.
Wordsworth believed that it was the Lake District’s environment – its combination of the beautiful and the sublime – that made him a poet. Nature was a benevolent and educative force, acting like a parent or a teacher, helping him to create his greatest literary works.
This spring marks the 250th centenary of the poet’s birth, and a visit to his beloved Lake District is the ideal way to celebrate. By walking with Wordsworth, we can step beyond the words on the page; we can see the Lake District through his eyes and feel it through his legs.
If you want to experience the place as he did, your time in Lakeland should be physically stimulating. You could try one of the many strenuous outdoor activities that the poet described in his autobiographical poem The Prelude: plunging into the River Derwent for a day-long swim, scrambling on Yewdale Crags near Coniston, mimicking the hootings of an owl on the glimmering shores of Windermere, or rowing a borrowed boat across the moonlit lake of Ullswater.
But to be truly Wordsworthian, you should walk. Wordsworth was a prodigious rambler, who came to know and love the Lake District through daily walks, often in the company of his sister Dorothy and his friend and fellow writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Walking was essential to the poet’s creative process, providing the underlying rhythms of his verse and a pace at which he could observe the world around him. Wordsworth liked to
follow physical exertion with periods of stillness, inspiring insight, so these walks all include opportunities for tranquil reflection.
WALK 1: AN EXCURSION TO LANGDALE
In the first version of his Guide to the Lakes,
Wordsworth described Great Langdale as “a Vale which should on no account be missed”. This is one of the most sublime parts of the Lake District, dominated by the craggy towers of the Langdale Pikes.
The poet particularly admired Loughrigg Tarn as the “most beautiful example” of a small lake, writing: “It has a margin of green firm meadows, of rocks, and rocky woods, a few reeds here, a little company of water-lilies there, with beds of gravel or stone beyond.” The tarn remains an ideal picnicking spot or a good starting point for an invigorating circular walk through Great and Little Langdale.
Wordsworth set his poem The Idle
Shepherd-Boys beneath the Langdale Pikes, recounting how a nameless poet rescued a lamb that had fallen from a “mighty Block” wedged across the torrent of Dungeon Ghyll Force. As Wordsworth commented: “It was a spot, which you may see / If ever you to Langdale go.”
Traversing the steep and rocky flanks of Lingmoor Fell brings you to another key Wordsworthian location, that of The
Excursion. This long poem focuses on a figure named only as the Solitary, who has withdrawn to live in a “bare dwelling” by
Blea Tarn in Little Langdale. In this isolated spot he is visited by two other characters, the Poet and the Wanderer, who walk all the way from the south of England to see him (Wordsworth was himself a marathon walker, hiking from Cambridge to the Alps and back when a student). The poem brilliantly captures the remote, rugged feel of this place, dominated by the “two huge Peaks, / That from some other vale peered into this”. If you want the full Wordsworthian experience, add the “steep ascent” of Lingmoor Fell to this Langdale excursion.
“FOLLOW THE POET TO HELVELLYN’S SUMMIT AND YOU WILL SHARE THE EXHILARATION OF ELEVATION”
WALK 2: HELVELLYN
In The Excursion, the Wanderer advises the Solitary to “climb every day”, offering demanding physical exertion and the benefits of being outdoors as potential cures for his friend’s depression. Wordsworth was himself a keen climber who wrote one of the earliest pieces of rock-climbing poetry, included in The
Prelude. He liked to describe himself as a “mountaineer”, not only because he came from a mountainous region but because he had the stamina and skills required to ascend high peaks in a period when doing so was just becoming fashionable.
Helvellyn held a special place in the poet’s heart. He climbed Lakeland’s third highest mountain many times and by several different routes, making one ascent in 1840 when aged 70. In 1805, the poet scrambled to the summit along the perilous ridge of Striding Edge in the company of two of the great figures of the age, novelist Walter Scott and scientist Humphry Davy. In his
poem To ---, on Her First Ascent to the
Summit of Helvellyn, Wordsworth captures the exhilaration felt by many on reaching the mountain’s highest point:
Inmate of a mountain-dwelling Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed From the watch-towers of Helvellyn; Awed, delighted, and amazed!
If you follow Wordsworth and his unnamed female climber (in fact, a Miss Blackett) to the summit of Helvellyn, you will be able to share with them the exhilaration of elevation, which the poet termed “the power of hills”.
The original tourist ascent, well known to Wordsworth and his family, begins at the King’s Head Inn, Thirlspot, and gives stunning views as it climbs via Whiteside Bank and Lower Man to the summit. Descend via the same route.
Now we return to Wordsworth’s beloved Grasmere for our final walk.
WALK 3: HOME AT GRASMERE
“The loveliest spot that man hath ever found.” With this phrase, Wordsworth described the garden orchard of Dove Cottage. Now preserved by the Wordsworth Trust, the cottage provides the starting point for a circular ramble around the lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water, one of the most beautiful low-level walks in the Lake District. This route takes us on paths the poet trod on an almost daily basis.
The walk’s first half follows the Coffin Path, so-called because coffins were once carried along this track for burials at Grasmere churchyard. After a short but steep ascent, a brief detour leads to secluded Ladywood, a favourite place for the poet’s family and friends. They knew it as John’s Grove, after the poet’s brother, a merchant sailor who created a path through the wood. John’s untimely death at sea in 1805 severely shook his brother’s faith.
Now rarely visited, the grove is an ideal place for the kind of quiet reflection Wordsworth undertook here.
The route continues along the Coffin
Path, bringing superb views across the shimmering lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water to the fells of Silver How and Loughrigg. It emerges at the top of the small hamlet of Rydal, by the entrance to Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s spacious and airy residence from 1813 until his death in 1850 (rydalmount.co.uk). The beautiful terraced garden was landscaped by the poet himself.
Elsewhere in Rydal, you can still see the Wordsworth family pew in St Mary’s Church, a building that Wordsworth helped design. In spring, Dora’s Field – named after the poet’s daughter – offers fantastic displays of daffodils. Wordsworth was the first to plant the flowers here, in memory of Dora, after her death in 1847 at the age of 42.
The return route to Grasmere crosses the River Rothay and gently ascends Loughrigg, offering spectacular views of surrounding fells. As the path turns on to Loughrigg Terrace, it provides the walk’s great moment of revelation, which so inspired Wordsworth more than two centuries ago: that vision of Grasmere’s lake and village, embraced by the protective arms of the hills that encircle them.
A descent into Grasmere makes it possible to complete this Wordsworthian pilgrimage with visits to the poet’s two other houses in the village – Allan Bank (now a National Trust property, nationaltrust.org. uk/allan-bank-and-grasmere) and the Old Rectory (not open to the public) – and to his grave in St Oswald’s churchyard.
I hope you’ve been inspired by following in Wordsworth’s footsteps through the sublime Langdale Valley, gazing from the watchtowers of Helvellyn, and standing on Loughrigg Terrace, experiencing the “one sensation that is here”. And may your memories of your visit to the locations of Wordsworth’s poetry continue to uplift you. As the poet wrote, in such moments “there is life and food / For future years”.
“LADYWOOD, OR JOHN’S GROVE, IS AN IDEAL PLACE FOR QUIET REFLECTION”