The Local Connection

A warm welcome to families

and a cozy corner to think about Wordsworth.

Local school children introduce the exhibit

and explain the contents of the cases.

Mark Ward paints a railing and perhaps contemplates his next poem or blog.

The Wordsworth Trust is best known for its protection and preservation of Dove Cottage and of the writings of Wordsworth and other Romantic authors.  But the Trust is also active in the community of Grasmere and holds important historical records for the village.  This week has opened my eyes to the work Jeff Cowton and his staff do to make this connection with the local population a vital and meaningful one.  We came back from being away for a few weeks on personal business to find a new room in the museum—the Family Activity Room.  It’s the first room off the front door now, and it’s a warm and inviting spot for families to be introduced to life as it was in Wordsworth’s day.  But what impressed me more than the presence of the activity room was how it was constructed—with the help of local school children.  Photographs of four local schoolchildren introduce one to the museum cases, and the explanations of the items in the case are written by the children.  I haven’t seen that type of involvement in a museum before, and I can imagine that it made the children feel as if the museum is their museum, which it is really.

On Thursday, we had another example of this deep connection when our landlords invited us to come along to a meeting the Trust was holding regarding Grasmere history.  It was, hands down, the most interesting village event we’ve attended yet.  Jeff Cowton and his assistant Steven had photos and maps displayed in a PowerPoint presentation, and he invited attendees—local villagers interested in Grasmere history—to help him date the photos and identify the buildings.  The exchange was lively, friendly, and hugely informative.  Some villagers brought photos, which Steven uploaded during a break, and the gathering enjoyed chatting about those as well.  Jeff invited the group to think about next possible steps, and they discussed the possibility of an interactive map of the history of the buildings of Grasmere or a special exhibit devoted to Grasmere and World War I for next year’s anniversary.  I was so struck by his openness and his engagement with the group.  What if all museums saw the integral link they have to their communities and worked to embrace and include that community?  Such activity highlights the continuity between the distant past and the recent past of those who live here.

One person who sees such a connection is Mark Ward, who maintains the house and grounds and who leads tours of the house.  Fittingly, besides being a handyman, Mark is a poet.  I’ve been on two tours with Mark, and he adapts the information to the audience. But in every tour, he includes Wordsworth’s comment that two of the poems in Lyrical Ballads “were written with a view to shew that men who do not wear fine cloaths can feel deeply” (Early Letters 261-2).  His blog tries to do much the same; he highlights locals and includes bits of stories from them, recipes, and relevant poems from other poets.  Those interested in his poetry should check out his official website as well.

Making connections with the village is certainly a highlight of our time here.  Badminton has moved to Monday nights, and Chris continues to enjoy that social activity.  Recently, we had a very nice chat with Diana Matthews, the high sheriff of Cumbria, and learned a bit about her job greeting visiting royals and encouraging and supporting local craftspeople.  We are watching the Lakes slowly fill with tourists, and we notice that the local population is becoming much busier with the work that goes along with an active tourist trade.  We hope that they will still find time to share occasional stories with us.  They are stories we will cherish for a long time.

A Quiet Week

The lambs have arrived!  Two little ones are in the right of the screen.  In the middle, you can see a little one who decided the way to avoid the cold snow is to sit on mama's back.  Smart lamb!

Apparently sheep turn into caravans during bank holiday weekends.

On one of our driving excursions, Eifel enjoys the solitude of the beach.

This phone booth is in the middle of nowhere on the road to Hardknot Pass, which was closed by snow.  Our question is, who answers it when it rings?

Sometimes in research, the most important thing to do is to take some time and just think.  And that’s largely what happened this week.  Eifel and Chris were doing a lot of hiking, which left the house empty and quiet (not that either of them are noisy!).  I spent a good deal of the time sitting on the couch looking at our amazing view and thinking about what I had found and what I still needed or wanted to find.  By the end of the week, I had a much clearer sense of next steps.

One of those next steps will take me to the County Record Offices to look at local subscription library records for the years surrounding the publishing of the Excursion.  One day this week, I took the bus down to Kendal to take a look at the Kendal Book Club records.  I had read that Wordsworth was a member of the Book Club, and I wanted to see if that affected what they bought.  I didn’t quite time the bus correctly, unfortunately, and got there with just 45 minutes to look at the records.  While I need to go back to make sure of what I saw, a few things were clear.  Wordsworth had not yet joined the book club by 1814 or even by 1817, the last year’s record I saw.  The book list for 1817, a book list that is somewhat cumulative (not including books individual members may have bought from the club over the years), contained no books by Wordsworth.  Southey and Scott were fully represented, and several of the Excursion’s competitors from 1814 were present in the book list.  So far, I’ve seen two examples of book clubs but have yet to examine any subscription records.  I’m curious to see if there is a difference in the types of books between the two types of organizations.

Despite my bad timing of the buses, I would like to extol the virtues of public transportation.  Part of our time here is an experiment in public transportation.  I’ve learned a few things.  One is that there are some times you just need a car.  If you don’t have one, someone else has to drive you.  While this can sometimes be fuel efficient car-pooling, sometimes people have to drive distances to pick you up.  And then you haven’t lowered your carbon footprint at all.  So that’s something to take into account.  One doesn’t want to always be beholding to one’s friends, as grateful as one is for them.  A car is also extremely useful for exploring.  We rented a car to do some sightseeing with Eifel and to take him up to St. Andrews at the end of the visit.  We wouldn’t have been able to get to some of the little out of the way spots—such as the Hermitage Castle in Scotland—without a car.  Nonetheless, even with all these caveats, being car free has been liberating.  Once we got used to planning for the extended time it takes to travel by bus, we began to enjoy it.  Let someone else negotiate the narrow lanes of the Lake District while we sit up in the double-decker bus and enjoy the views!  We’ve seen more of English culture too on the bus than we would have in our car, and we’ve met some of the nicest people while waiting for the bus.  Can someone set up a bus system in little Elsah, Illinois?  That would be great.

I will be taking two weeks off from my blog while I take care of some other business.  But look for me then for new pictures and updates.

March Snow

Chris and Eifel head out the gate and towards Helm Crag.

Helm Crag just two days later.

Grasmere in the snow

The daffodils have arrived but maybe not as imagined!

Jeff Cowton introduces some visiting tour guides to the library's resources.

Everyone seems very happy to be here.

Well, there had to be one blog about the weather, didn’t there?  As you can see from the pictures, the weather this week has been changeable, to say the least.  We have our friend Eifel with us this week.  He’s here on his Easter break from St. Andrews University, and he came eager to climb the peaks.  But the snow on the tops has limited his hiking to the lower fells for the most part.  Earlier this week, he and Chris took a hike from here over to Hawkshead—a scouting trip for me to see if it would be a good hike for the Principia Lifelong Learning group coming to join me in late June.  About an hour after they left, it began to rain.  It rained steadily for hours, and I began to imagine them soaked and unhappy.  About 45 minutes before they arrived back, it stopped raining.  I saw them coming and ran to the door to help remove wet clothing.  They were completely dry.  It hadn’t rained at all over the ridge where they were.  They got about ten minutes of light hail, and that was it.  Now that’s localized weather!  The next day, the snow had cleared enough for them to hike to the top of Helm Crag.  Right now, I’m snuggled under a blanket in our house watching as the snow continues to fall.  It’s been snowing since yesterday.  It’s not snowing hard enough for huge amounts of accumulation, but the temperature isn’t going to get above freezing today, so it will be staying around until at least tomorrow.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s absolutely beautiful here in any weather.

The research has been going very well.  I’ve reached the point where the ideas are starting to come together, and I’m beginning to see a shape to things.  The highlight for me this week was getting to see two first edition copies of the Excursion in the library.  One had belonged to Lord Lowther and was from his library.  It was bound in leather with gild edging and an elaborate gilded seal on the front with a crown on the top of a wreath that encircled his name in scrolled letters.  The second copy was one from the Harrow Book Club.  It was bound simply in boards—a sort of cardboard cover that books were generally sold in unless the buyer wanted to pay for a leather or cloth binding.  On the front of the book was affixed a large bookplate that had printed on it the rules of the club and the instruction to erase one’s name when one had read a book.  The plate included the names of the twenty-one members of the club, nine of whom had read the book.  This copy helped answer some questions I had had about how book clubs operated as well as providing an example of how the Excursion was received in one group.

Also this week, a group of tour guides came to the library to hear from Jeff about all that the museum, Dove Cottage, and the library have to offer.  From the looks of it, they were impressed with the resources and were enjoying their time.  Today, the exhibit on Dorothy Wordsworth curated by Pamela Woof opens.  We are looking forward to seeing it.  It’s the first exhibit to focus solely on Dorothy.  As Pamela said to me in the library one day, “She’s coming into her own.”  About time.  If you are in the area, do stop by and see it.

Books, books, books

Very young students from the Grasmere Primary School came to the Trust for a tour.  These dolls helped to introduce them to Dorothy and William during story time in the library.  The Trust has an active education department with lots of opportunities for learners of all ages.

Back to the Quaker Library in London.

I keep trying to capture the amazing sunsets out our window.  Nothing is quite like being here!

This week took us back to London to the Quaker Library to once again look at Thomas Wilkinson’s papers, but this time, I was looking for a letter written to him that he quoted in a letter to Wordsworth regarding the Excursion.  And I found it!  Such successful treasure hunts are wonderful.  This one yielded some interesting questions about subscription libraries of the period that I will be exploring in weeks to come.  

I also went to London to attend a seminar conducted by the Dr. Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies.  These seminars, which happen monthly, cover a range of topics for anyone interested in learning more about non-conformist activities in England.  I had marked several on my calendar, and this one looked interesting: “Private Books for Educational Use—the Formation of the Northern Congregational College Library.”  I was especially interested by the time of the talk since I’d spent my day in the Quaker Library thinking about nineteenth century libraries.  While the talk wasn’t quite what I had expected, it was fascinating.  It announced a project to “make available in digital form the Catalogue of the Library of the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester (1885),” as the handout explained.  This project will add to the Dissenting AcademiesOnline: Virtual Library System by photographing (at this point) about 2500 books and entering them a searchable database.  The photographs try to capture any relevant images that indicate original provenance or marginalia. This portion of the site should go live in a month.  Ed Potten, from Cambridge University Library, spoke about questions that arise from examining these images, questions that might only be answered with the collection of more images from more books.  One of the potentially trivial but interesting questions was about the use of non-literary images drawn in the books—from early versions of the smiley face drawn into the letter “O” to brief astronomical sketches of the solar system.  Though rare, they are intriguing.  Have college students always scribbled in their books?

I have to say that I felt in the know when the discussion turned to habits of private collecting and sharing of books.  Not that I am by any means an expert, but my time at the Wordsworth Library has taught me some interesting things about how individuals used their libraries.  Wordsworth, for instance, leant out his books regularly and had a notebook to keep track of who had what book.  From the letters I’ve read in the library, too, it wasn’t just Wordsworth; people were constantly borrowing and loaning books to one another. According to David Allan (Commonplace Books and Reading in Georgian England), readers were forming book clubs and their own local subscription libraries.  “There may have been two thousand of the former by the 1820s and perhaps 260 of the latter,” he writes, “their participants ranging from luminaries like Wordsworth (at the Kendal Book Club), Coleridge (at the Bristol Library Society) and Austen (who joined a female-dominated book club at Chawton) to humbler figures like the apprentice cutler Hunter (who attended the Sheffield Book Society), the painter Christopher Thompson (who helped found an artisan’s library at Edwinstone in Nottinghamshire) and members of the Spitalfields silk-weaving community who established their own lending collection” (14-15).  

And marginalia, though not in every book in Wordsworth’s library, wasn’t an unusual occurrence.  A few weeks ago, a visiting scholar was looking at the marginalia in the family Bible.  Such scribbling can sometimes be quite revealing.

As always, it’s good to come home to Grasmere.  We arrived in rain, and it’s been raining all day again today, but we don’t mind.  A cozy spot on the couch with a view of the mountains through the mist will do just fine.