Cumbria

Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) In 1775 travelled in the Lake District (Armthwaite, Penrith, Carlisle)

George Borrow (1803-81) Oulton 1840-1866, and 1874-1881. He died at his home Oulton Cottage, Oulton, Suffolk on 26 July 1881 and is buried with his wife in Brompton Cemetery in London. Memorials in Oulton and Glyn Ceiriog.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) In 1800 he moved to the Lake District with the Wordsworths

George Macdonald (1824-1905) Whitehaven, Cumbria

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) moved to the Lake District in 1845, where she designed and organised the building of her house, The Knoll, at Ambleside where she remained until 1876

The Knoll

E.J. Oxenham (1880-1960) used the Lake District for several of her books.

Athur Ransome (1884-1967) lived in Nibthaite near Lowick 1947-9, on the shores of Coniston Water, Peel Island, (Wildcat Island), Cartmel, stayed at a farmhouse called Wall Nook. 1925 bought Low Ludderburn, in the Cartmel Fell valley. A flourishing Society in his name was formed in 1990 and is based at The Abbot Hall, Museum of Lakeland Life and History, Kendal where there is a special room devoted to Ransomee memorabilia, including his desk, his favourite books, first editions in many different languages, and the Swallow and Amazon pennants themselves. The original Amazon may be seen at the Windermere Steamboat Museum at Bowness together with the Esperance, one of the prototypes for Captain Flint's houseboat.

The unnamed lake of Arthur Ransome's books is an amalgamation of Coniston and its sister Windermere, but it is on Coniston, close to Nibthwaite, that you will find the promontory where the Swallows planned their first expedition, and Wildcat Island, exactly as drawn in the books. Many of the incidents in the stories are drawn from Ransome's own childhood memories and fantasies - the Knickerbockerbreaker, where his trousers were worn out and darned in situ by Annie Swainson, the tickling of trout, the collecting of fox-moth caterpillars and meetings with the charcoal-burners.

Ruskin 1819-1900 lived as child in Keswick, lived at Brantwood in the Lake District 1871-1900. Buried in Conniston, memorials in Westminster Abbey, Keswick and Oxford.

Shelley (1792-1822) 1811 stayed in York and Keswick, rented house in Keswick 1813

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) born at the now named Wordsworth House, Cockermouth, (in the north of the Lake District) educated Cockermouth 1779, May, Hawkshead Grammar School. Lodged in Colthouse 79-87. 1794, stays at Windy Brow, Keswick, Cumbria - reunited with sister, Dorothy. 1794, August - September, stays at Rampside, Cumbria - sees Peele Castle. 1799 at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. (arrives at Dove Cottage 20 December 1799). Lived in Dove Cottage until 1808, 1808-9, Allan Bank, Grasmere, Cumbria. 1811-12, Rectory, Grasmere, Cumbria, 1813-50, Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, Cumbria Died: 1850, 23 April. Buried in St Oswald's Churchyard, Grasmere,near a yew he had planted. Commemorated in Westminster Abbey and Grasmere

Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria the home of William Wordsworth between 1799 and 1808.

Dove Cottage was the home of William Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, the years of his supreme work as a poet. It is situated in the picturesque hamlet of Town End and was built, probably in the early part of the 17th century, as a small hostelry called 'The Dove and Olive'. Many visitors flock every year to see Dove Cottage and its gardens, but for all this, it remains very much as it was when Wordsworth was living there with his sister Dorothy and wife Mary, when Coleridge was a frequent visitor, and also when Thomas De Quincey moved in as a successor to Wordsworth. Dove Cottage tour