"Mary and I walked to the top of the hill and looked at Rydale. I was much affected when I stood upon the second bar of Sara's gate. The lake was perfectly still, the sun shone on the hill and vale, the distant birch trees looked like large golden flowers."

📔 Dorothy Wordsworth, 1st November 1802.

"[August] 24th, Sunday. A fine cool pleasant breezy day - walked in the wood in the morning ... I was ill in the afternoon and lay down - got up restored by a sound sleep." 🖋

📔 'Dorothy Wordsworth's Illustrated Lakeland Journals' (1991).

🍃 Dorothy's journal entry, 225 years ago today.
.

"...Her whose eyes
Saw light through every wildering maze uncouth." 🖋

📕 'Suspiria', Edward Quillinan.

🎊 Happy 221st Birthday Dora Quillinan née Wordsworth!

A wonderful start to the Wordsworth Summer Conference yesterday at Rydal Hall, with this gorgeous sight on the way home...

...is that perhaps gold at the end of the rainbow? 🌈 ✨️

Looking forward to welcoming the conference to RM on Saturday!

'...No longer, scattering to the heedless winds
The vocal raptures of fresh poesy,
Shall he frequent these precincts...' 🖊

📘 'The massy Ways, carried across these heights', William Wordsworth.

🖼 Ursula Hurst

📍The Summer House, Rydal Mount & Gardens

"- I love that house because it is
The very Mountains' child." 🖊

📔 Dorothy Wordsworth, 'Grasmere - A Fragment'.

🖌 Last night I had the privilege of attending Wordsworth Grasmere's event 'The Time Lab: Museum Late'. This was a part of resident artist Stacey Rossouw's evolving exhibition exploring Wordsworth's 'spots of time' through multiple artistic mediums.

🥂Thank you to everyone for such a fantastic event!

'Yet still a lurking wish prevails,
That, when from life we all have passed
The Friends who loved thy Father's name
On her's a thought may cast.' 🖊

📗 'To Dora Wordsworth', Dorothy Wordsworth, June 1832.

'With busy eyes I pierced the lane
In quest of known and unknown things,'

🖊 Dorothy Wordsworth, 'Thoughts on my sick-bed' (1832)

🖼 Ursula Hurst

"... For my lot
Then was, within the famed Egerian Grot
To sit and muse, fanned by its dewy air"

📔 'Composed at Rydal on May Morning', William Wordsworth

📍Rydal Hall

After the gorgeous (but scorching) weather of last week, it's lovely to feel Rydal returning to its usual cardigan weather - and yes, of course it has to be on theme 💐🌿⛅️

'Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,'

- William Wordsworth, 1842.

'The wild cat of the wilderness', our Dora 🐈

Dora Wordsworth, the daughter of William, was referred to as a 'wild cat' by close family friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Our cat, who was named after Dora, embodies the same spirit 🦁.

Source: Pamela Woof, 'Dora Wordsworth, Artist, 1804-1847'.

'Not a window lets in light,
But through flowers clustering bright;'

- Extract from 'A Poet's Home', Maria Jane Jewsbury, 1825.

A wee bit of wisteria blooming outside Dorothy and Dora's bedrooms this morning 🌄

What a fantastic couple of days at University of Cumbria's Research NOW! Conference. It was wonderful to watch colleagues present their research, including the fabulous Abi Palmer and her work on Anne Lister. Thank you to everyone who attended - particularly the organisers and presenters 👏👏👏

Another accurate journal entry from Dorothy, although this time from 223 years ago today.

The roses at Rydal are also not battered (but neither are they baked, or fried🌹)

'Dorothy Wordsworth's Illustrated Lakeland Journals', intro. by Rachel Trickett (Diamond Books, 1991)