In the northwest of England, tucked amongst the mountains of Cumbria are sixteen ribbon lakes that lace the countryside and give the region and national park its name: The Lake District. Drenched in a lush, vibrant beauty that speaks of quiet dreams and ethereality, it’s no mystery why this particular landscape has sung the siren song of artists since the early 19th century.
The Lake District is both romantic and Romantic, still singing its siren song to artists but with an added layer of irresistibility for literary souls of the world—a literary history as rich as its landscape.
“The loveliest spot that man hath ever found.”
-William Wordsworth about the Lake District
Born in Cockermouth, Cumberland and raised among the landscape of the Lake District, William Wordsworth saw the poetry of the natural world around him and set his pen to paper, immortalizing it with poems such as “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” and his unfinished three-part philosophical and autobiographical epic poem “The Prelude.” Though much of his work was greatly inspired by the Lake District, these two pieces in particular were directly influenced by his life and experiences among the lakes. His Guide Through the District of the Lakes, first published anonymously in 1810 as an introduction to Reverend Joseph Wilkinson’s collection of engravings of the Lake District and later published under Wordsworth’s name in various editions, was unique in its place among guidebooks. While certainly a functional traveller’s guide, it is something of an ode to the region Wordsworth loved so much. As Wordsworth biographer Stephen Gill put it, “The Guide is multi-faceted. It is a guide, but it is also a prose-poem about light, shapes, and textures, about movement and stillness … It is a paean to a way of life, but also a lament for the inevitability of its passing … What holds this diversity together is the voice of complete authority, compounded from experience, intense observation, thought, and love.”
Though the praises of the Lake District had been sung in other poets’ works and by other notable guides decades earlier, Wordsworth’s Guide Through the District of the Lakes has been credited with increasing the district’s status as a destination.
Wordsworth and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge met in 1795, beginning a friendship that would changed the future of poetry and literature. The friendship was nearly immediate, their almost daily contact proving creatively impactful and rewarding for both of them. Their joint publication of Lyrical Ballads, featuring Coleridge’s most notable work The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in 1798 signaled a shift in the literature and poetry of England. With their abandonment of the strict learned forms of 18th-century poetry, they marked the beginning of the Romantic Period within English literature, a movement focused on individualism, emotion, and a return to nature in all art.
When Wordsworth moved back to the Lake District in 1799 after living in Dorset for four years, Coleridge followed. Wordsworth settled in Dove Cottage in Grasmere with his sister and Coleridge settled in Greta Hall in Keswick. An even older friend of Coleridge’s was fellow poet Robert Southey, who he’d met at Oxford in 1794. Together they’d written a play, The Fall of Robespierre, and had even contemplated forming, along with others, an idealistic community in America. Those plans long abandoned, Southey married Coleridge’s sister-in-law and moved into Greta Hall with the Coleridges.
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey became known as the Lake Poets. With no official singular school of thought, these men were bound together by their location, ideas, and poetry. Wordsworth and Southey lived the rest of their lives here, but Coleridge left in 1804. Though not all three stayed until their deaths, the Lake District inspired and affected these poets and their place in the Romantic movement immeasurably. Other poets associated with the Lake Poets include Dorothy Wordsworth (William’s sister, who was not published in her lifetime), Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb, Charles Lloyd, Hartley Coleridge, John Wilson and Thomas De Quincey, who lived in Dove Cottage for years after the Wordsworths moved out.
Further Reading: Thomas De Quincey’s Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets
Visitors to the Lake District today can visit Dove Cottage and get a taste of what life was like for the Wordsworths in the preserved cottage. Even the gardens have stayed true to the half-wild garden William and Dorothy tended to. Wordsworths’ journals, letters, and poetry are on display in Dove Cottage. A trip to the nearby Jerwood Centre reveals a collection of over 64,000 items including paintings, manuscripts, books and more related to the British Romanticism movement. Over 90 percent of Wordsworth’s manuscripts are stored at the Jerwood Centre.
Learn more about the Jerwood Centre
Travelers can also add a literary twist to their Lake District visit by staying at Coleridge and Southey’s former home, Greta Hall, now a bed and breakfast.
The Lake District is forever tied to the Romantic movement because of these prolific poets, but of the second generation of Romantic poets–Byron, Keats, and Shelley–only Keats was truly taken with the region. Keats, who loved Wordsworth but was put off by his campaigning for not-so-radical politicians, went on a walking tour of the region and found it as enchanting as so many before him had. He walked with Wordsworth’s poetry in mind, but was disappointed when he tried to call upon the poet and found nobody home. He departed the district shortly after. Shelley, drawn to the district by Southey’s early work, was disappointed to find that Southey’s politics had also become less radical and the Lake District was not as he’d imagined, ruined by “the manufacturers.” Byron never visited the Lake District, critical of the Lakes Poets’ isolation and less-radical politics.
While perhaps the strongest and most obvious literary ties of the Lake District come from the Lake Poets, countless other notable figures made this region their home, letting its influence pervade their work.
One such figure is poet, artist, art critic, conservationist and philanthropist (among other things) John Ruskin. Ruskin first visited the Lake District at around five years old and he said of the trip: “The first thing I remember as an event in life was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar’s Crag on Derwentwater.” He described that moment as “the creation of the world for [him].” He visited the Lake District several times in his childhood and wrote a 2,310-line poem, Iteriad, about his trip from Windermere to Hawkshead and Coniston when he was only 11 years old. Ruskin also visited the region rather frequently as an adult, eventually moving into Brantwood House, which was near Coniston, in 1871.
Learn more about Brantwood House
Today, a memorial honoring Ruskin can be found in a grove of trees in Friar’s Crag. Visitors to the area can visit Brantwood House itself, exploring the former home and sprawling estate of Ruskin while enjoying the different displays, activities, and exhibitions the House puts on.
Travelers can also visit the Ruskin Museum in Coniston, founded in 1901 by W.G. Collingwood. A local antiquarian and artist, Collingwood was a secretary and friend to Ruskin. Following Ruskin’s death in 1900, Collingwood set up the Ruskin Museum as a tribute to his friend, honoring his work and the region he loved so much.
Today, the Ruskin museum houses the original Ruskin collection in the Ruskin Gallery, but there are other displays including the Coniston Gallery, dedicated to local heritage displays, and exhibits for coppermining, Arthur Ransome, and more.
Learn more about the Ruskin Museum
Author and journalist (and suspected Soviet spy) Arthur Ransome was most well known for his 12-book children’s adventure series Swallows and Amazons. Having visited the Lake District on family holidays as a child and schooling in Windermere, Ransome eventually settled in the Lake District in the 1920s. The region’s impact can be seen in his children’s books, some of which took place in the Lake District or were inspired by its landscape. Ransome was another friend of W.G. Collingworth’s, and they’d often sail on Lake Coniston together.
In 1990, the Arthur Ransome Society was founded. Aiming to celebrate his life and work, the society is based out of the Museum of Lakeland Life in Kendal where you can find a collection of Ransome’s personal artifacts including his desks, pipes, books and more in the Arthur Ransome Room. Fans of Swallows and Amazons could also visit the Windermere Steamboat Museum, which the Society has ties to, and see the boat that inspired one of his character’s houseboats.
Another iconic children’s author that found their home among the sprawling, beautiful landscape of the Lake District is Beatrix Potter. Having visited during her younger years like Ransome and Ruskin, Potter was inspired by the landscape and animal life of the Lake District. After finding some success with animal-inspired children’s books such as Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, she bought land, including Hill Top Farm, in the Lake District in 1903. In 1905, she bought Castle Farm across from Hill Top, which became her base in the Lake District. Many of her stories were inspired by her life in the Lake District, with seven being set in or among Hill Top Farm. She was passionate about preserving the Lake District and was a friend of Reverend Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of the founders of the National Trust. Potter was also instrumental in saving Herdwick sheep from extinction, becoming an expert in breeding them after buying a farm that had them. After her death, Potter left her 14 farms and over 4,000 acres of land to the National Trust. It was her gift to the country and region she loved. The Trust now owns 91 farms with over 25,000 Herdwick sheep.
Learn more about Hill Top Farm
Visitors to the Lake District can visit Hill Top Farm, which is preserved as Beatrix Potter left it, and experience a slice of the life she loved so much. In Hawkshead, in what used to be Beatrix’s husband’s office, you can visit the Beatrix Potter Gallery where they have annual exhibitions of Beatrix’s original illustrations and drawings. In Windermere, you can find The World of Beatrix Potter—an immersive (if somewhat cheesy and touristy) experience that begins with a little film that introduces visitors to Beatrix and Peter Rabbit and ends with a walk through a Lake District-inspired landscape recreation dotted with readers’ favorite Beatrix Potter characters.
Learn more about the Beatrix Potter Gallery and The World of Beatrix Potter
Other literary greats, while not making the Lake District their permanent residence, have traveled to, enjoyed, and felt inspired by the region’s beauty and atmosphere. Such figures include Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and more.
In Ambleside, visitors will find the Armitt Museum and Library. A unique combination of museum, library, and gallery, the Armitt was founded in 1912 by Mary Louise Armitt to showcase the intellectual and artistic pursuits of the Lake District and to provide a place for the exchange of ideas within the community. The museum has a collection of over 11,000 books focused on the social and natural history of the region as well as works by the region’s most notable names–Wordsworth, Ruskin, Harriet Martineau (social reformer and political economist), Charlotte Mason (pioneering education reformer), and more. Beatrix Potter was an early supporter of The Armitt and the museum holds a collection of her family’s books, several of her personal first editions, and over 300 botanical watercolor paintings she gifted the museum. Though not solely focused on the literary history of the Lake District, the Armitt Museum and Library is one destination visitors interested in the region’s rich intellectual and artistic history shouldn’t miss.
Learn more about the Armitt Museum and Library
The Lake District is arguably one of the most beautiful regions in all of England. If its dramatic, sweeping landscape wasn’t alluring enough, its rich literary history is enough to bring all types of readers flocking to the region. From Romantic greats to childhood favorites, there’s something for all appreciators of great, impactful literature and art to enjoy within the literary world of the Lake District.
“Take me to the Lakes where all the poets went to die.”
-Taylor Swift, The Lakes
What a great piece of work! Thanks for putting it together. Maybe someday I’ll get there. . .
Thank you so much, Mary! I’m so happy you enjoyed it! Hopefully we’ll both get there someday.
I’m impressed by all the research that went into this. You’ve made me long to be able to make a return visit to see the places that I missed a few years ago. I don’t recall seeing the Ruskin Museum but will be making a point to include that on the next trip
Thank you so much! What an incredible compliment it is to hear that I made you long to make a return visit. I’m glad you enjoyed the post!