The trip took this year at the beginning of Trinity term, as an introduction to the Romantic poets. We were based again at How Foot Lodge hotel, in Town End, Grasmere, just a few yards from Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Library. We made visits to Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, and viewed the several different manuscript versions of The Prelude in the company of Jeff Cowton, the custodian of the Trust's collections. We followed Wordsworth's footsteps up to Easedale Tarn and down Far Easedale, and we climbed up Loughrigg to re-enact Wordsworth's sighting of Grasmere as described in Home at Grasmere. Many thanks to the Balliol Society for a grant that made the trip possible this year.
Photographs by Jeremy Robinson. Click on the photograph for a larger version.

How Foot Lodge	Reading the opening of Home at Grasmere	Rydal Water at dusk

Far Easedale	The Jerwood Centre

2006

The trip took this year at the beginning of Trinity term, as an introduction to the Romantic poets. We were based this year at How Foot Lodge hotel, in Town End, Grasmere, just a few yards from Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Library. We paid homage in Dove Cottage and toured the Wordsworth Museum, and visited the Jerwood Centre in the comapny of Jeff Cowton, the keeper of the collections at the Trust, who showed us manuscripts, including the earliest texts of The Prelude, many early editions, and other treasures, including autograph letters of Queen Victoria and others. We made excursions up Easedale, over Loughrigg, and round Rydal. Many thanks to the Balliol Society for a grant that made the trip possible this year.
Click on the photograph for a larger version.

On top of Loughrigg	The Excursion	Dove Cottage garden

Cute	Easedale

2005

The trip took place during Trinity term, when the second year was studying Romantic literature. Based again at Rydal Hall, we visited Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, in the company of Robert Woof, the Director of the Wordsworth Trust, and also attended an evening of readings, part of the Trust's contemporary arts programme. We made several excursions around the valley, including Far Easedale and Loughrigg via Ambleside (enacting Wordsworth's first sighting of his 'dear Vale', as described in the opening, dedicatory lines of Home at Grasmere). Photographs by Michaela Bronstein. Click on the photograph for a larger version.

Rydal Wood	Climbing Loughrigg

Loughrigg, with Windermere	Loughrigg tarn	Easedale tarn	Grasmere lake

"'Tis, but I cannot name it, 'tis the sense, Of majesty, and beauty, and repose, A blended holiness of earth and sky, Something that makes this individual spot, This small abiding-place of many men, A termination, and a last retreat, A centre, come from wheresoe'er you will, A whole without dependence or defect, Made for itself, and happy in itself, Perfect contentment, Unity entire." ("Home at Grasmere") The view of Grasmere from Loughrigg Terrace, Easedale and Dunmail Raise beyond.

2004

The trip takes place during Trinity term, when the second year studies Romantic literature. Based at Rydal Hall, opposite Rydal Mount (Wordsworth's home from 1813) we visited Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, in the company of Robert Woof, the Director of the Wordsworth Trust, and also attended a poetry reading, part of the Trust's summer season of readings. We made excursions up Easedale to the Tarn (the beckside is the setting of 'It was an April morning', the first of the 'Poems on the Naming of Places'), over Loughrigg (so re-enacting Wordsworth's first sighting of his 'dear Vale', as described in the opening, dedicatory lines of Home at Grasmere), up Greenhead Gill (where 'Michael' is set), and to an old quarry above Rydal Water (a place happily free of the slightest Wordsworthian association). Click on the photographs for larger versions.

Easedale Tarn	The abandoned quarry above Rydal Water

Loughrigg	Rydal Hall gardens	Grasmere, looking toward Helm Crag

2003

Climbing Loughrigg	Looking out towards Lingmoor Fell	On top of Loughrigg, Dunmail Raise in the background	Easedale Tarn