Dove Cottage

Wordsworth fans will also want to stop at Dove Cottage where Wordsworth lived from 1799 to 1808 and the adjacent Wordsworth Museum. Park by the tearoom on the main road and walk up to the museum to buy your ticket. Try to visit early in the day as they restrict a tour to the number of people who can comfortably fit into Wordsworth’s tiny living room. As you tour the few meager rooms, which housed six adults and three children, it is hard to believe that this was home to one of the leading poets of the era. Poet laureates write poems on royal events, but not Wordsworth: he was the only poet laureate to write not a word on such occasions—but he relished the royal stipend.