Wordsworth House and Garden

Important notice -

Wordsworth House and Garden is closed until spring 2021. In the meantime, we're working hard to reopen many of our places where it is safe to do so.

Celebrate William Wordsworth’s 250th birthday at his childhood home

More about this place

Family walking in the woodland at Castle Ward, County Down

Which places are open and what you need to know before you visit 

More than 100 gardens and parks and hundreds of coast and countryside places are open in England and Northern Ireland. Following the latest government guidance, all houses in England and Northern Ireland are closed. We're reopening our places in Wales from Monday 9 November for visitors who live in Wales in line with Welsh government guidelines following the firebreak lockdown. To avoid disappointment please book in advance, especially at weekends and school holidays. Please check the property webpage of the place you wish to visit before you travel. Find out how to book and what to expect from your visit.

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Wordsworth House and Garden

Things to see and do

A man with a briefcase walks past a wall

Meet Rowan McCabe, our poet in residence 

Rowan McCabe, our poet in residence for Wordsworth’s 250th anniversary year, knocks on strangers’ doors and asks what is important to them. Here’s what happens next…

Bright yellow flowers growing around a garden bench

Autumn in the garden that inspired a poet 

Wordsworth House’s walled heritage garden, where William learned his love of nature, is filled with the colours, scents and sounds of the season.

Stick people made with twigs and scraps of fabric

Make your own gorgeous Georgians 

... terrible Tudors, elegant Elizabethans, crazy cavemen or anyone else you fancy, with this fun craft activity from the Wordsworth House and Garden team. All it takes is some sticks, leftover fabric, wool and other odds and ends.

A baby bonnet worn by Dorothy Wordsworth on display at Wordsworth House

Craft yourself a Georgian paper hat 

Celebrate William’s 250th birthday by making and decorating your own bonny paper bonnet or a cool bicorn hat.

A woman dressed as an 18th-century maid sieves flour

A taste of the past: podcasts 

Meet the maid-of-all-work and get a sneak preview of the happiness and hardship of everyday life in William's childhood home with our special podcasts.

A woman wearing dungarees sitting in an armchair

Wordsworth @250 poetry competition winners 

Read the poems that won our Wordsworth@250 Young People’s Poetry Competition, judged by poets Rowan McCabe and Helen Mort.

Poppies growing in the garden at Wordsworth House

Find us on Facebook 

'Like' Wordsworth House and Garden on Facebook to get all our news, see who's been visiting and discover what they've been up to.

Two women talking in the front courtyard at Wordsworth House

Keep up with the Wordsworths 

Follow Wordsworth House and Garden on Twitter to keep up with our latest activities – and find out what's interesting and amusing us.

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Wordsworth House and Garden

History

Two children in period costume stand by a river

Wordsworth’s years of happiness and heartache 

As the childhood home of William and his sister Dorothy, Wordsworth House was, for many years, a place of tremendous happiness, but it also witnessed great sorrow.

Odille Ellis and her mother Dorothy in the greenhouse in the 1930s

How Wordsworth House was saved 

The Wordsworths aren’t the only family to have left their mark on this house. Thanks to their inadvertent pyromaniac tendencies, the Ellises, who lived here in the 1930s, were almost responsible for its destruction.

" The happiness the Wordsworth children experienced still radiates here"
- Visiting couple
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Wordsworth House and Garden

Our work

A maid preparing a bonnet at Wordsworth House and Garden, Cockermouth

My dream job 

Julia Routledge spends her working day dressed as Amy, the maid-of-all-work employed by William Wordsworth’s parents at his childhood home in Cockermouth.

A woman standing in front of a brick wall

Annie Adams’ volunteer story 

Annie explains why she loves working in the garden that inspired William Wordsworth to become one of the world's best-loved nature poets - and how other family members got involved too.

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Wordsworth House and Garden

Art and collections

Our collections

Explore the objects and works of art we care for at Wordsworth House and Garden on the National Trust Collections website

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© National Trust Registered Charity 205846 Heelis, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2NA

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