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Lake District National Park

Until the region was popularised in William Wordsworth’s (1770–1850) 1820 edition of A guide through the District of the Lakes, it would have been a relatively wild and inaccessible area seen as uncivilised and dangerous for travellers. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth and educated at Hawkshead. In 1799 he settled in Grasmere living at Dove Cottage until his growing family forced him to move to Allan Bank in 1808, then the Old Rectory in 1810 and finally Rydal Mount in 1813. He lived there for the remainder of his life surrounded by a group of similarly Romantic writers and poets now known as the Lake Poets. Wordsworth described the district as ‘a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and an interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy’. But his enthusiasm for others to enjoy the landscape did not stop him protesting against the railway being extended to Windermere in 1847, perhaps with good reason as what had been a peaceful lakeside hamlet originally called Birthwaite became instantly accessible to the wealthy professionals and businessmen of the Northern cities and mill towns who quickly transformed the landscape by building lavish villas as weekend retreats. Hotels and boarding houses rapidly followed to accommodate the 120,000 tourists who visited the now fashionable resort every year during the second half of the 19th century. As tourism grew, the wealthy ventured further afield, building or acquiring grand country retreats, leaving the towns to holiday makers and day trippers.