‘Come forth into the light of things,” implored William Wordsworth in his 1798 poem The Tables Turned, extolling the virtues of a good old-fashioned walk in nature. Treading through his homeland of the Lake District more than two centuries later, on a radiant early spring day, sunbeams casting through the bare branches to anoint the daffodils, it’s a compelling edict.
As a founding father of England’s Romantic poetry movement, Wordsworth’s legacy is synonymous with the rolling, rugged landscapes of the Lakes. He and his contemporaries Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were collectively known as the “Lake Poets”, and to gaze on the region’s deep, still waters and scrabble across its fells is to understand the source of his artistic inspiration, centuries on.
That, at least, is the aim of a new walking route dedicated to the literary giant’s life and work. The Wordsworth Way – which was unveiled on 7 April to celebrate the poet’s 255th birthday – threads strands of pre-existing footpaths together to form a signposted 14-mile trail stretching from the shores of Ullswater to the tourist town of Ambleside. It’s a region that Gordon Lightburn, Chair of Friends of the Ullswater Way, which delivered the project with partners including Wordsworth Grasmere and the University of Cumbria, refers to as “the cradle of the Romantic literature movement”. The route contemplates the former poet laureate’s “plain living and high thinking” philosophy by connecting places linked to his verses and his personal history, as well as those of his friends and family.
“The idea is to get people experiencing the Lakes the way the Romantics did, by slowing down, noticing the details in the landscape, and reflecting on nature,” says Jade Cookson, a University of Cumbria alumnus who wrote a guidebook on the new route. “It’s about seeing the world through Wordsworth’s eyes and understanding why this place meant so much to him.”
The Wordsworth Way can be enjoyed as a 14-mile point-to-point walk, or a more leisurely 21-mile route involving three other circular walks, with convenient public transport links at either end. The walk itself offers a mix of bracing fell walking around Grisedale Tarn, and civilised strolling through the village of Grasmere to provide a sweeping overview of the poet’s life and influence, while paintings and pencil sketches featured in the guide bring to life the views as they would have looked in Wordsworth’s day.
Kicking things off, walk one is an 8.3-mile yomp from Glenridding village up towards Grisedale Tarn and the craggy horizons of Helvellyn. Considering the poet’s formative years, it takes in poignant sites such as the Brothers Parting Stone, a memorial immortalising a goodbye between Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and his brother John, who would go on to die at sea. The indistinct-looking weather-beaten rock, which is signalled by a metal plaque, bears an inscription from Wordsworth’s poem In Memory of My Brother, in which he probes his grief. Its exposed location high on the fells, surrounded by nothing but grass, rocks and rolling hills, hints at the loneliness the words depict.
Today I’m picking up the route at the start of walk two in Grasmere, where the adult Wordsworth and his brood lived for almost 15 years. A contemplative pause at the family graves, which lie in the churchyard of the historic St Oswald’s, in the shade of a series of yew trees planted by the poet, offers a sense of his community-mindedness. I’m distracted, though, by the heady scent of Cumbrian rum butter drifting through the moss-covered headstones: the school house that Wordsworth’s children attended is now home to the oldest gingerbread shop in the UK, Sarah Nelson’s Grasmere Gingerbread. I stock up on the crumbly, chewy biscuits for my trek under the midday sun over the flat fields towards the commanding Sour Milk Ghyll waterfall, a favourite spot of William and Dorothy. I tackle the steep climb to a solitary lookout bench at Greenhead Gill, whose “tumultuous brook” and “upright path” is immortalised in Wordsworth’s lyrical poem Michael. Pausing for breath at the bench at the edge of the slope, I’m surprised at how dramatic the drop is, but the peaceful valley seems mostly unchanged since the day he wrote: “The mountains have all opened out themselves / And made a hidden valley of their own.”
Continuing on, I pick up walk three at Wordsworth’s former home of Dove Cottage on the edge of the village, which has been preserved, along with its charming fellside garden, as an ode to his daily life with Dorothy alongside his growing family. It is well worth a pit stop, as is the adjacent museum offering detailed context of his creative life. From here, I take the path that rises gently to meet a historic and occasionally scrabbly coffin route offering serene views over a tranquil-looking Rydal Water, which ends at Rydal Mount, another house rented by Wordsworth.
This section of the route focuses on family, leading me to discover the hushed enclave of John’s Grove, where William and Dorothy would remember their brother, and later to Dora’s Field, a daffodil-covered patch of land that Wordsworth bought to remember his eldest daughter, whom he outlived. From there, I continue on to walk four, which examines the impact of his legacy by exploring the homes and lives of additional literary figures connected to Wordsworth and the Lakes. It weaves on easy footpaths to Ambleside, taking in houses formerly occupied by Thomas De Quincey and Harriet Martineau, and concludes at the site of the famous “Wordsworth steps” at what used to be the residence of his relative Dorothy Harrison, and is now part of the University of Cumbria’s Ambleside campus.
Dorothy Wordsworth often takes centre stage on this walk, her words appearing frequently in Jade Cookson’s guidebook to bring anecdotes and places to life. As the reader approaches the Sour Milk Ghyll waterfall, for example, a passage from Dorothy’s diary recalls “the valley of its winter yellow, but the bed of the brook still in some places almost shaded with leaves”; while a stop at the Rectory, another Wordsworth residence en route, relates to excerpts from a tragic letter that Dorothy wrote to Thomas De Quincey to describe the death of William’s young daughter Catherine, which occurred during the family’s time at the house. “Part of doing this is to try to give her a little bit more recognition as well; the recognition that she deserves,” says Lightburn. He asserts boldly: “Her prose is far better than William’s, and her poetry is just as good.” Cookson was also keen to highlight her role in the Wordsworth story: “His huge body of work was a team effort,” she says. “His sister, Dorothy, and wife, Mary, played a big role in shaping his work.”
It’s hard not to wonder what Wordsworth, who was steadfastly opposed to tourism in the area, would have made of the Lake District today, with its luxury hotels and traffic constantly snaking between Windermere and Ambleside. “He’d probably have mixed feelings,” says Cookson. “He’d likely object to the crowds and infrastructure, but might appreciate efforts to conserve the landscape.” That said, as the Wordsworth Way proves, opportunities to turn off the beaten path and take a more meditative direction still abound.
For more information, see ullswaterheritage.org/wordsworth-way. The Wordsworth Way: A Literary Walking Guide Between Glenridding and Ambleside by Jade Cookson is available from Verey Books and Catstycam for £7.50.
