Till not too long ago, lovers of William Wordsworth may seek advice from his ultimate house, Rydal Mount and Gardens, nestled within the center of England’s inexperienced and wonderful Lake District. Famend as probably the most distinguished British poets, the works of Wordsworth (1770-1850) come with what’s broadly considered essentially the most well-known poem within the English language, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
So it’s no longer sudden that his immaculately maintained space and gardens, with breathtaking perspectives of Lake Windermere and Rydal Water, as soon as attracted 45,000 guests a 12 months.
On the other hand, emerging prices, a fall in customer numbers to twenty,000 or fewer in step with 12 months, and the residual results of the pandemic have positioned the way forward for the museum in query.
The present house owners have put Rydal Mount available on the market for the primary time since 1969 for £2.5 million – which means this essential piece of literary heritage, relying on who buys it, may grow to be closed to the general public.
The home was once purchased by means of Mary Henderson, Wordsworth’s great-great-granddaughter, in 1969 and opened as a author’s space museum a 12 months later.
Rydal Mount was once at first a small Sixteenth-century cottage. By means of 1813, there was once sufficient room for Wordsworth, his spouse Mary and 3 surviving youngsters, plus Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Sara and sister Dorothy – writer of the Grasmere Magazine, which detailed the family’s existence.
Leaving the cramped prerequisites of the extra well-known Dove Cottage at the back of them, it was once at Rydal Mount that Wordsworth in reality settled, construction a “writing hut” and broadly landscaping the grounds to his personal design.
This text is a part of our State of the Arts sequence. Those articles take on the demanding situations of the humanities and heritage business – and have a good time the wins, too.
Subsequent to Rydal Mount is Dora’s Box, which additionally has literary importance. Right here, the poet is assumed to have planted 1,847 daffodils to mark his daughter Dora’s reminiscence, following her demise from tuberculosis elderly 42. Those daffodils nonetheless bloom each spring.
Whilst dwelling at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth revised his epic “The Prelude” and wrote many different widespread poems. This too is the home the place he died in 1850. It was once simplest when Mary died in 1859 that the circle of relatives’s tenancy of the home got here to an finish.
Guests get to step into the home the place all this came about and notice a wealth of uncommon gadgets, together with a unprecedented portrait of Dorothy and Wordsworth’s letter to Queen Victoria refusing the activity of Poet Laureate (which he later authorised).
Rydal Mount and its intensive gardens had been open to the general public since 1970.
John Morrison/Alamy
Proudly owning England’s heritage
Guests pass to literary museums to revel in the “spirit of the place”, to “encounter” the writer and take in a few of their creativity. One fresh customer to Rydal Mount was once so upset to not meet Wordsworth in my opinion that they wrote a disparaging assessment, telling in their confusion that the poet “wasn’t in” and “when [they] asked when he would be home, all [they] got was blank stares.”
Wordworth is so intently attached to the Lake District that advertising methods have used him to advertise the world because the 1800s. Rydal Mount has had an integral position in keeping up those traditions. The property agent’s ad is eager to worry the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of England’s heritage” and the “superb gardens … designed by Wordsworth himself”.
In promoting the museum as it’s, there’s a actual possibility that Rydal Mount may grow to be a personal house misplaced to the general public eye – just like Greta Corridor, the house of Wordsworth’s fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which has lengthy been privately owned.
Potential closure isn’t unusual for smaller museums in 2025. A up to date document famous that 3 in 5 small museums concern closure on account of declining income and footfall. 2020 was once the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s start and must had been a bumper 12 months of occasions and tourism for the Lake District. As an alternative, the pandemic ravaged the celebrations and left vacationer sights in monetary peril that many have no longer recovered from.
William Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount for 37 years and died there.
Wikimedia, CC BY
Critics will argue that although Rydal Mount does shut, there are nonetheless 3 extra Wordsworth properties open to guests (Dove Cottage, the favorite of vacationer guides, Wordsworth Area and Lawn, and Allan Financial institution). Even Wordsworth’s old skool is a museum.
The closure of Rydal Mount would inevitably spice up those different websites’ customer numbers – in particular Dove Cottage, which is at the identical (albeit lengthy) highway as Rydal Mount. And the situation of Wordsworth’s remaining house may probably be advanced by means of a personal proprietor with plentiful budget to maintenance the home.
On the other hand, it’s also true that public appreciation of museums stays top, with 89% of adults in a 2024 YouGov survey advocating for his or her significance to UK tradition, and 54% registering sadness if their native museum have been to near.
Whilst the British Museum has skilled its easiest customer numbers since 2015, extra must be carried out to save lots of regional museums and author’s space museums from closure. The sale of Rydal Mount into non-public fingers might turn out a critical loss to literary historical past, leaving the Lake District a lot the poorer for it.
