Fri 24 Mar 2017
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Alcock Tarn
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The sun was shining and the air felt warm, so I decided to fulfill my wish to once more visit Dove Cottage in Grasmere as part of my
studies and appreciation of Wordsworth. I managed to finish Mary Moorman's
two-volume Biography (after some false starts some years ago) and I have
started to read again the one by Hunter Davies.
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Dove Cottage
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On the
garden gate there are some words purporting to be a quote from Wordsworth's
poem To a Butterfly.
I mentioned to the lady guide that it wasn't actually a word-for-word quote but
she would not accept it! However, the tour was very good, with
some differences from other descriptions of the place such as having to fetch
all water from up the road: another report has it that William and a neighbour restored
a well in the garden, and although now dry, it is still there.*
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View from William's moss seat
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After
visiting the garden which seemed twice as large as I remember it, I decided to
see again Michael's sheepfold in Greenhead Ghyll. After a false start I
rather tired myself too much and reached only the lower ruin. I shall need to
go again. I couldn't see the fold the poet wrote about which is further up the valley.
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Not Michael's sheepfold!
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I returned to the main track and chatted with a person who was lucky enough to live just near the beck above the Swan Inn. He gave a bad report about the Windermere Ferry which is having problems with a supposedly automatic system.
I
continued up to Alcock Tarn, lovely and peaceful in the late afternoon sun. AW gives
no more information than just the title to this pleasant small reservoir. I was surprised to find
my phone connected well enough for me to send a photo by email to Andrew! Passing
by this tarn en route for Stone Arthur had been part of his first Lake District Fell Walk.
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Alcock Tarn from the north
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Looking to the Coniston range from Alcock Tarn
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It was such a beautiful day, the warmest
this year so far. I
made my way down to the old road that leads to Dove Cottage, thus
completing a round that maybe William and Dorothy often walked.
*Housekeeping with Dorothy Wordsworth at Dove
Cottage by Margaret & Robert Cochrane (Highgate
Publications 2001) p.30
INDEX
