Raymond Biswanger Slide Collection

William Wordsworth: 1799
Grasmere, Cumbria (Part 1)

After returning from Germany near the end of 1799, William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth considered settling in Stowey, Somerset, so that they would be near Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, Coleridge was eventually persuaded to move to their home district of Cumbria. Coleridge made this decision after a scenic walk that he and Wordsworth took through Troutbeck, Windermere, Hawkshead, Rydal and Grasmere.

Buoyed by his sense of exhilaration upon his return to his childhood home, Wordsworth was convinced that he should have a home in the Lake District area, and in November 1799, rented a small house in Grasmere. In the middle of December, he moved there with Dorothy. This house would later come to be known as Dove Cottage.