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Rydal Mount, Cumbria

William Wordsworth moved to Rydal Mount in 1813, his last house, and the place where he settled down to be William Wordsworth, worthy poet, upstanding Englishman, national treasure, and early conservationist. He had left his "romantic" days behind. Romantic poets were meant to live fast and die young, and most of them did. Wordsworth had said goodbye to his long time friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, just before he moved to Rydal Mount, accusing his friend of "rotting his entrails out of intemperance." The rock and roll life style can only be kept up for so long, and one way or another the young romantic Wordsworth had to pass away. I remember Punk Rock back in the 1970s being viewed as a threat to civilisation. Now punks can be found in London, being photographed by tourists as if they were Westminster Abbey. Wordsworth went through a similar transformation, and by the time he reached his respectable stage he was living at Rydal Mount.

Rydal Mount also represents the respectable stage of the natural world in human history. Up until the fifteenth century nature had been viewed with fear, and people had done their best to shut it out or cover it up. All the wood used to build Shakespeare's Globe Theatre we now find attractive. But this wood was covered up by all the brightly coloured paint of the period. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries man's influence over nature was complete, and there was no landscape in Britain unaffected by man. Man was now part of the landscape, and nature had taken on a new image. At Rydal Mount Wordsworth created a garden which he hoped would harmonise with the "natural" world around it. Nature was now something to admire and protect. And yet a little of Shakespeare remained in Wordsworth. In The Prelude a shaft of sunlight is described as filtering through the planking of a barn used as a country theatre. This light of a "common sun" spoils the magic of the theatre. Wordsworth is best known for writing about the magic of nature, but he also writes about the magic of shutting nature out. In a way a garden is as much about shutting nature out as inviting it in, as much about control and cutting back as planting and growing. The present complex nature of our relationship with the natural world has its origins in the time of the Romantic Poets. The garden at Rydal Mount is a nice place to reflect on this. For more information see our History of Gardens page.

Opening Times: Rydal Mount is open daily from March to October 9:30am to 5pm and during November, December and February 10am to 4pm. Rydal Mount is closed on Tuesdays, 25th - 26th December and during January.

Directions: Rydal Mount is in the village of Rydal, just off the A591, about a mile north of Ambleside. Click here for an interactive map centred on Rydal Mount.

Access: wheelchair access to Rydal Mount is possible. Contact the property to discuss your needs.

Contact:

telephone: 015394 33002

e-mail: info@rydalmount.co.uk

web site: www.rydalmount.co.uk