24 June 2025
Wordsworth Grasmere opens new interactive exhibition
Visitors to Wordsworth Grasmere can now become part of its history and legacy by offering up their ‘memories’ as part of a new immersive and interactive exhibition, ‘The Time Lab: Exploring a Living Prelude’. Read more…
9 April 2025
New Wordsworth trail opens in the Lake District
The Wordsworth Way, a signposted 14-mile walking route between Glenridding and Ambleside, opened on 7 April to mark Wordsworth’s 255th birthday. Read more…
21 January 2025
Grasmere wins travel writer’s praise
The ‘idyllic grounds’ of Wordsworth Grasmere and the rest of Grasmere village have been praised by the Daily Telegraph today as ‘the ideal place for long walks and lifted spirits’. Read more…
15 August 2024
Cumbria Museum Consortium statement on recent riots
14 May 2024
Royal Patronage
We are honoured and delighted that His Majesty The King has chosen to continue his Royal Patronage of the Wordsworth Trust. This is a tremendous endorsement of Wordsworth’s continuing importance, and of our work to fulfil his wish, that his poetry ‘live and do good’.
16 January 2024
Humphry Davy’s notebooks on display
Notebooks kept by Sir Humphry Davy, the famous chemist, geologist, inventor and friend of William Wordsworth, have gone on show in the Museum at Wordsworth Grasmere. The notebooks are on loan from the Royal Institution, and they provide a rare glimpse of Davy as a writer of poetry, sometimes even while working in the lab on new scientific discoveries. The exhibition, created by the team behind the Davy Notebooks project led by Lancaster University, will be on display until 23 March 2024. Read more…
11 December 2023
Wordsworth Grasmere featured on Matt Baker: Christmas Travels with Mum & Dad
Wordsworth Grasmere appeared on Matt Baker: Christmas Travels with Mum & Dad alongside attractions including Hill Top (the National Trust), Cumbria Crystal and the Ruskin Museum. Curator Melissa Mitchell said: ‘It was lovely to spend time with Matt, Janice and Mike here at Wordsworth Grasmere. Introducing them to some of our treasures, including Dorothy’s Grasmere journal and the 1799 Christmas Eve letter, was a special moment’. Watch the episode…
31 August 2023
New additions to the collection at Wordsworth Grasmere
Five printed books including a first edition of Wordsworth’s 1807 Poems, in two volumes have been gifted to the Wordsworth Trust’s collection. They formed part of the Blavatnik Honresfield Library, which was created by the Victorian industrialist William Law and saved for the nation through a major fundraising campaign led by the Friends of the National Libraries. Find out more about the Blavatnik Honresfield Library…
6 July 2023
Wordsworth Grasmere named Cumbria’s Small Visitor Attraction of the Year
Wordsworth Grasmere has been named Small Visitor Attraction of the Year at the 2023 Cumbria Tourism Awards, and will now go forward to represent Cumbria nationally at the Visit England Awards for Excellence. Read more…
7 June 2023
Wordsworth Grasmere in the running for a national award
Wordsworth Grasmere has been shortlisted in the ‘Indoors’ category of the Association for Heritage Interpretation’s 2023 Engaging People Awards. Read more…
17 May 2023
Former Wordsworth Grasmere exhibition opens in the Palace of Westminster
Refuge from the Ravens, a ‘remix’ of the Lyrical Ballads by people who have experienced homelessness that was displayed at Wordsworth Grasmere in autumn 2022, is now on show for a week in the Upper Waiting Hall of the Houses of Parliament. Read more…
8 May 2023
The Big Help Out at Wordsworth Grasmere
Performing poetry, giving guided tours and leading workshops are amongst the ways in which volunteers help to bring Wordsworth Grasmere alive for visitors. As part of the Big Help Out on Monday 8 May, the Wordsworth Trust is providing introductions and taster sessions for people interesting in joining its volunteer team. Read more…
25 April 2023
The Wordsworth Trust Shortlisted for Two Awards
The Wordsworth Trust has been shortlisted for two Cumbria Tourism Awards. Wordsworth Grasmere is in the running for Small Visitor Attraction of the Year for a second consecutive year, and Jessica Sneddon, Visitor Experience and Engagement Assistant, has been shortlisted for an Unsung Hero Award. The Awards recognise ‘fantastic quality, service and care to visitors’ and the winners will be announced in July. Read more…
22 April 2023
Celebrating Earth Day at Wordsworth Grasmere
Earth Day is being marked at Wordsworth Grasmere with nature-themed activities for families as part of the Wild Escape. Described as ‘the largest collaboration between UK museums’, the Wild Escape is supported by Arts Council England, the Art Fund and other funders. Wild Escape funding is also being used to develop guided walks for visiting school groups and create new interpretation in the Woodland. Read more…
18 February 2023
‘To the Lakes!’ opens
In a new exhibition at Wordsworth Grasmere, visitors are invited to experience the Lake District through the words and images of the tourists who came before them, 200 years ago. Read more…
5 January 2023
‘Bargain’ bus route gets national recognition
Stagecoach’s services to Dove Cottage and Grasmere village have been recognised as amongst the most scenic bus routes in England to be benefitting from discounted travel. The £2 fare will be in place until 31 March 2023. Visitors arriving at Wordsworth Grasmere also get money off admission. Read more…
10 December 2022
Tim Farron MP visits Wordsworth Grasmere
The Rt Hon Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, visited Wordsworth Grasmere yesterday to see Refuge from the Ravens. He described being moved by the exhibition, commenting, ‘To be homeless is so often to be ignored, yet here those people are seen and heard’. Read more…
6 December 2022
Former Wordsworth Trust President receives honorary degree
Pamela Woof, a Fellow and former President of the Wordsworth Trust, has been made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Newcastle University, where she taught Literature from 1970 to 1996. Pamela is the editor of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere and Alfoxden journals, and her honorary degree was awarded for her ‘significant contribution to a growing area of interest to students of Romantic-era literature’. Read more…
4 November 2022
Arts Council funding awarded to 2026
As part of the Cumbria Museum Consortium, the Wordsworth Trust has been included in Arts Council England’s new ‘national portfolio’ of funded organisations. The grant offer comes after a competitive bidding process, and it means that the Wordsworth Trust can continue to enable anyone, whatever their background, to find creative inspiration in Wordsworth’s legacy. Read more…
11 October 2022
‘Remixed’ Lyrical Ballads gifted to the collection
People who have experienced homelessness have gifted a volume of poems that the Lyrical Ballads inspired them to write to the Wordsworth Trust’s collection. The volume is a contemporary re-telling of Lyrical Ballads by people who saw their own lives reflected in the tales of homelessness and poverty that Wordsworth and Coleridge brought to public attention over 200 years ago. Refuge from the Ravens: New Lyrical Ballads for the 21st Century is now on display in the Museum at Wordsworth Grasmere. Read more…
16 September 2022
Sir Ian McKellen visits Wordsworth Grasmere
Sir Ian McKellen, Fellow of the Wordsworth Trust, made his first visit to Wordsworth Grasmere since last year’s reopening. He was amongst an audience of two hundred at a poetry reading by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, and he was shown round the new Museum, which features a recording of his reading of The Prelude. Read more…
29 July 2022
Dove Cottage and Grasmere Brought to Life in Verse
Twenty poets and writers who have had a connection with Dove Cottage and Grasmere, including former poets in residence and of course William and Dorothy Wordsworth, have been brought together in a new collection published by the Poetry Business. Read more…
10 June 2022
Dora Wordsworth’s Continental Journal Published
87 years after the manuscript notebook was bequeathed to the Wordsworth Trust, the journal that Dora Wordsworth kept of her tour of the Low Countries and the Rhineland with her father and Samuel Taylor Coleridge has been published in full for the first time and is now available to buy. Read more…
17 May 2022
School Travel Award Finalists Include Wordsworth Grasmere
Wordsworth Grasmere is amongst the finalists in the ‘Best Venue for English Teaching’ category of the 2022 School Travel Awards, as voted for by the readers of School Travel Organiser. Read more…
27 April 2022
Wordsworth Grasmere Shortlisted for a Cumbria Tourism Award
Wordsworth Grasmere has been shortlisted in the ‘Small Visitor Attraction of the Year’ category of the 2022 Cumbria Tourism Awards. The awards celebrate the very best of Cumbria’s vibrant tourism economy, and the winners will be announced in July. Read more…
11 March 2022
Wordsworth Grasmere Shortlisted for a Museums & Heritage Award
Wordsworth Grasmere has been shortlisted in the ‘Permanent Exhibition of the Year’ category of the 2022 Museums & Heritage Awards. The awards are described as ‘the Oscars of the Museum World’, and the winners will be announced in May. Read more…
17 February 2022
A Lifetime of Dorothy Wordsworth scholarship
The 2021 Wordsworth Lecture is now available online. Recorded in December 2021 (shortly before Dorothy Wordsworth’s 250th birthday on Christmas Day), it features Pamela Woof in conversation with Professor Sir Drummond Bone, the Wordsworth Trust’s Chairman, and it gives a fascinating insight into a lifetime of scholarship by the world’s most renowned authority on Dorothy Wordsworth. Watch…
11 February 2022
British Library loan ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ manuscript to Wordsworth Grasmere
The British Library is lending its manuscript of ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ to Wordsworth Grasmere. It will be displayed alongside the Wordsworth Trust’s own manuscript of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere journal from 12 February to 29 May 2022. The loan is part of the British Library’s ‘Treasures on Tour’ programme, which is generously supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. Read more…
7 February 2022
New Trustees appointed
The Wordsworth Trust has appointed three new Trustees to its board. Dr Amy Concannon is Senior Curator, Historic British Art at Tate, Dr Paul Davies is a local GP and a Trustee of the Kelsick Trust, and Tim Robertson is Chief Executive of the Anne Frank Trust UK. Read more…
1 February 2022
ITV Border visit Wordsworth Grasmere
A news crew from ITV Border came to see how Minecraft can help children discover Wordsworth’s greatest work, The Prelude. The resource has been created through the Wordsworth Trust’s partnership with Lancaster University, and it’s a great way to introduce Wordsworth to young readers. Watch…
22 November 2021
The Wordsworth Trust wins Culture Recovery Fund support
Funding from the UK Government and Arts Council England will ensure that Wordsworth Grasmere can remain open by meeting essential running costs during the winter of 2021/22. Read more…
18 November 2021
Wordsworth Grasmere amongst the winners at the 2021 London Design Awards
Gold awards were received in the categories of Exhibition Design, Wayfinding and Identity & Branding. Read more…
