Grasmere

“ After a lapse, when Yorkists sat on the throne, and Sir William Parr of Kendal held it, the Fee (now including the advowson of Grasmere) returned to Margaret and passed to her grandson Henry VIII. He sold the advowson and patronage of Grasmere. Its subsequent history will be given later.
Such was the illustrious line of our church's early patrons—some of them the most striking figures in a chivalrous age. But it is not to be supposed that they [52] knew much of the little parish hidden amongst the mountains. ”

“ Soon followed the final settlement, in the last days of last century, in the small cottage at the Townhead of Grasmere, which became their home for more than eight years, and will forever continue to be identified with the most splendid era of Wordsworth’s genius. For it was during the years immediately preceding Grasmere, and during the eight Grasmere years, that he attained to embody in one poem after another the finest effluence of his spirit. ”

“ All history begins with geography. Grasmere was from early times the centre of a parish that embraced the twin valleys of Rothay and Brathay, whose waters drain into the lake of Windermere, while the lake empties itself into the great bay of Morecambe. ”

“ The fir-grove murmurs with a sea-like sound,
Alone I tread this path;—for aught I know,
Timing my steps to thine; and, with a store
Of undistinguishable sympathies,
Mingling most earnest wishes for the day
When we, and others whom we love, shall meet
A second time, in Grasmere's happy Vale. ”

“ It overlooks from the front the beauteous lake of Grasmere, though the view from the lower rooms is now considerably obstructed by buildings since erected. Behind is a small garden and orchard, in which is a spring of pure water, round which the primroses and daffodils bloom, as they did when lovingly reared by Miss Wordsworth. A dozen steps or so, cut in the rocky slope lead up to a little terrace walk, on a bit of mountain ground, enclosed in the domain, and sheltered in the rear by a fir-clad wood. Altogether it was an ideal cottage-home for the enthusiastic young couple. ”

“ By surviving five brothers—several of whom were bachelors like himself—he succeeded to the family estate; and the old Furness homestead had been added to his other residences. [158] The Rydal squire notes in that Account Book—which became practically a diary:—
Little as Grasmere had known him, the old man remembered the place in his will, and bequeathed £50 for the school, under trust to the "minister and such persons as shall be of the four and twenty of the parish of Grasmere." ”

“ After leaving the churchyard, we wandered about in quest of the post-office, and for a long time without success. This little town of Grasmere seems to me as pretty a place as ever I met with in my life. It is quite shut in by hills that rise up immediately around it, like a neighborhood of kindly giants. These hills descend steeply to the verge of the level on which the village stands, and there they terminate at once, the whole site of the little town being as even as a floor. ”

“ The parish of Grasmere also embraced three townships. One was Grasmere proper, situated in the basin-shaped vale that catches the sources of the Rothay, Langdale; the sister valley formed the second township, which extended to Elterwater; the third was Rydal-and-Loughrigg [29] (often called Loughrigg and Beneath-Moss) which included all the rocky mass between the converging rivers, the compact village of Rydal with part of Ambleside.
From three sides of the parish then, by mountain path and "horse-trod," the folk wended their way for worship to Grasmere Church. ”

“ In the solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage of £8 per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales which reached me of the brilliant career of this quondam clown—for such in reality he was, in manners, and appearance, before he was polished a little by attrition with gentlemen's sons trained at Hawkshead, rough and rude as many of our juveniles were. ”

“ Again, I know of no 'lilies of the vale' at Grasmere, but they are found, I believe, on one of the islands of Windermere, certainly in woods near the river Leven, below that lake. Again, the vicar refers to 'two islands' on the lake, but Grasmere has only one. I never saw a goat 'browsing by dashing waterfalls,' still less 'spotted deer' on or near Grasmere."
It seems to me that the description refers, first to Rydal lake, and then to Grasmere. The company descend, as will be seen, along a streamlet to a bridge, where they see a ram reflected in the water. ”

“ GRASMERE, a village and lake of Westmorland, in the heart of the English Lake District. The village (pop. of urban district in 1901, 781) lies near the head of the lake, on the small river Rothay and the Keswick-Ambleside road, 121/2 m. from Keswick and 4 from Ambleside. The scenery is very beautiful; the valley about the lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water is in great part wooded, while on its eastern flank there rises boldly the range of hills which includes Rydal Fell, Fairfield and Seat Sandal, and, farther north, Helvellyn. On the west side are Loughrigg Fell and Silver How. ”

“ The road in passing out from Rydal village goes near the cottage where poor Hartley Coleridge lived, and earlier, that strange creature De Quincey (of whom we shall have presently more to say) ; it skirts the very margin of Grasmere Lake; this latter being at your left, while upon the right you can almost see among the near hills the famous “Wishing Gate;” farther on is Grasmere village, and Grasmere church-yard—in a corner of which is the grave of the old poet, and a modest stone at its head on which is graven only the name, William Wordsworth,—as if anything more were needed! ”

“ In Wordsworth's early days at Grasmere, a wild woodland path of quiet beauty led from Dove Cottage along the margin of the lake to the "Point" referred to in this poem, leaving the eastern shore truly "safe in its own privacy"—a "retired and difficult way"; the high-way road for carriages being at that time over White Moss Common. The late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby and Foxhowe, used to name the three roads from Rydal to Grasmere thus: the highest, "Old Corruption"; the intermediate, "Bit by bit Reform"; the lowest and most level, "Radical Reform." ”

“ One sits and ponders these things, as the golden light recedes from Loughrigg, and that high crag above Wordsworth's cottage. Little Grasmere has indeed done all she could, and in this lovely valley, the heart of Wordsworth's people, the descendants of those dalesmen and daleswomen whom he brought into literature, is one—passionately one—with the heart of the Allies. Lately the war has bitten harder into the life of the village. ”

“ The natural beauty of the spot, combined with its associations, has given rise to a copious literature; and its praises have been rehearsed in poetry and prose of a high order. But by the historian Grasmere has been neglected. Its geographical position has tended to its eclipse. In ancient times locked up from the world in the farthest chamber of the mountains, and still the remotest parish of Westmorland (itself a neglected county) , it has missed the attention of the careful chronicler, and no serious attempt has been made to penetrate its past. ”

“ The moon is bright as ever I saw it, and we have lately returned from the smooth, still Grasmere, where there was hardly ripple enough to multiply its image; and where we could have sat for hours, nourishing the calm and solemn thoughts we had just brought from the quiet corner of the churchyard where we had sat by Wordsworth's grave. It was growing dark, but we could just read on the plain slate head-stone the sole inscription, "William Wordsworth." ”

“ Windermere, with its wide expanse of waters, its fairy islands, its noble hills, allures his steps in one direction; while the sweet little lake of Rydal, with its heronry and its fine background of rocks, invites him in another. In this direction the vale of Grasmere, the scene of his early married life, opens before him, and Dunmail-raise and Langdale-pikes lift their naked corky summits, as hailing him to the pleasures of old companionship. Into no quarter of this region of lakes, and mountains, and vales of primitive life, can he penetrate without coming upon ground celebrated by his muse. ”

“ See Paradise Lost, book v. l. 899.—ED.
[HH] See Comus, I. 244.—ED.
[HI] "The next character, to whom the priest is led by contrast with the resoluteness displayed by the foregoing, is taken from a person born and bred in Grasmere, by name Dawson; and whose talents, dispositions, and way of life, were such as are here delineated. I did not know him, but all was fresh in memory when we settled at Grasmere in the beginning of the century."—I. F.
[HJ] Hawkshead. The series of small valleys from Dunmail Raise to Esthwaite is described as one "far-winding vale."—ED. ”

“ From another document we learn that certain tenants of Grasmere pay an unspecified sum for the brewery of Keldbergh.
This manorial centre was united to the high line of road on the other side of the valley by several ways. One, a footpath, still passes hard by Kirk How, a now disused smithy being upon it. Two others approach and meet to cross Raise Beck together by White Bridge, the name indicative of a stone fabric at a time when timber was commoner. Here the village pinfold still stands. ”

“ The Rotha, mentioned in this poem, is the River which, flowing through the Lakes of Grasmere and Rydale, falls into Wyndermere. On Helm-Crag, that impressive single Mountain at the head of the Vale of Grasmere, is a Rock which from most points of view bears a striking resemblance to an Old Woman cowering. Close by this rock is one of those Fissures or Caverns, which in the language of the Country are called Dungeons. Most of the Mountains here mentioned immediately surround the Vale of Grasmere; of the others, some are at a considerable distance, but they belong to the same cluster. ”

“ This day was a fine one, and we had some grand mountain scenery; the rest of the week has been bad weather. The evening before last we walked to the upper waterfall at Rydal, and saw it through the gloom, and it was very magnificent. Coleridge was much struck with Grasmere and its neighbourhood. I have much to say to you. You will think my plan a mad one, but I have thought of building a house there by the lake-side. John would give me 40l. to buy the ground. There is a small house at Grasmere empty, which, perhaps, we may take; but of this we will speak.' [46]
24. ”

“ This Scottish tour was a little episode in the{207} quiet history of the poet’s residence at Grasmere. The truth is, that Wordsworth could not at this time rest long, even in his beautiful Grasmere, without the excitement of pedestrian travel and adventure. It was likewise a part of his education as a poet; the knowledge which he thus acquired of men, manners, and scenery. He had devoted himself to poetry; and every thing that tended to feed the divine faculty, he grasped at with an avidity equally as intense as that with which your mere canine man grasps at food for his perishing body. ”

“ Thence he drifted back to Ambleside, where he tried school-keeping, but in vain. He had no disciplinary power, and one by one his pupils were removed, till the school collapsed. From there he went to the Grasmere Cottage, already spoken of, facing the lovely little lake of Rydal, a blue island-dotted gem framed in with lofty green mountains. Everybody loved the lonely, affectionate man—a keen observer of Nature, an inspired writer of poetry—and everybody grieved when the end came one winter's day of 1849, and his remains were buried in Grasmere Churchyard. ”

“ The population must have been greater when the Kendal trade in cloth was at its height. There were 1300 "houseling people" reported for the parish of Windermere in 1549 (Commission quoted in Mr. Brydson's Sidelights on Mediæval Windermere, p. 95) , and there is no reason to suppose that Grasmere was far behind. ”

“ After an hour's hard climbing we gain one of the topmost outliers, whence we command an extensive map-like view of the circumjacent mountains. A final struggle for the last ridge, and then along its crest. We are at an angle formed by the vales of Grasmere, Legberthwaite, and Patterdale, when a magnificent effect is produced as the sun suddenly pierces the clouds. ”

“ The more famous Grasmere rush-bearing comes on the Saturday next after St. Oswald's Day, August fifth. This year (1906) these two festivals fell just one week apart. The London papers were announcing that it was "brilliant weather in the Lakes," which, in a sense, it was, for the gleams of sunshine between the showers were like opening doors of Paradise; yet we arrived at Grasmere [61] so wet that we paid our sixpences to enter Dove Cottage, a shrine to which we had already made due pilgrimage, and had a cosey half-hour with Mrs. ”

“ Wordsworth left Grasmere with his household for Coleorton in November 1806, and there is no evidence that he returned to Westmoreland till April 1808; although his sister spent part of the winter of 1807-8 at Dove Cottage, while he and Mrs. Wordsworth wintered at Stockton with the Hutchinson family. Several of the sonnets which are published in the "Poems" of 1807 refer, however, to Grasmere, and were probably composed there. ”

“ Now Grasmere may at first have ranked in the third order, as a mission church (capella) . It would in that case pay its tithes, or a large proportion of them, to Kirkby Kendal, and bury its christian dead within the consecrated soil of that church. It may not have acquired the right of burial until the lord created a demesne there. [32] This view is strengthened by the fact that the church of Kendale claimed certain dues from Grasmere and Windermere down to a late date. One was a pension of 13s. 4d. (one mark) [26] paid to the vicar out of the tithes of the parish. ”