Wordsworth’s Rydal Mount:
William Wordsworth is one of the greatest poets of the English language. He created much of his important writing here.
Rydal Mount was William Wordsworth’s family home for 37 years.
It was his final home, surrounded by landscaped gardens overlooking the lake and the fells. He took immense pride in the grounds.
He came to live in this lime-washed yeoman’s house in 1813 and lived here until his death in 1850.
Here the poet composed and revised many of his poems, including ‘daffodils’ which was published from here in 1815.
In fact, more than half Wordsworth’s published poetry was written at Rydal Mount.
Although Wordsworth had a large study, he spent his time in the grounds where he built a writing hut in where he spent a lot of his time.
The house itself was originally a farm built in 1550; the dining room still has its early timbers and slate floor. It was enlarged around the middle of the 18th-century.
Wordsworth himself was particularly attracted to the traditional style of the house with spectacular views over Rydal Water and Windermere.
While at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth threw himself into an energetic social life.
For most of the 1920s, the house was mostly packed with visitors.
The Wordsworths welcomed friends old and new, including William Wilberforce and Walter Scott.
Wordsworth himself was a compulsive busybody and high-minded moralist with an illegitimate daughter, often leaving his wife and children at home to go roaming the fells with his sister.
He never owned the house but leased it from the le Flemings of nearby Rydal Hall.
While living in Rydal Mount, William, Wordsworth accepted the post of Poet Laureate at the age of 73.
Incidentally, in 1969, Mary Henderson, the poet’s great, great-granddaughter, bought the property and opened it up to the public.
The house displays mementos of a life devoted to literature and the Romantic movement.
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