Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District and is best known as one of the homes of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. During this period William wrote much of the poetry that he is remembered for today. The property is owned by the Wordsworth Trust and remains largely unchanged from Wordsworth's day.
I loved this lovely cottage garden, purely because it was simple and it was reflective of the Lake District and its climate and its geology. It has a steep back garden, there are lots of ferns and slate and it just makes you think of the fells and mountainsides of the area, which I love so much.
Scattered around the tiny front garden are little pieces of slate with quotes from both William's work and Dorothy's diary. A perfect place in my eyes, literature and gardening mixed together to make its own piece of art!
As it's on a hillside, there are lots of steep slate steps overhanging with ferns, which again makes me feel I'm out in the Lakeland countryside and not really in a garden at all.
There is a lovely sheltered seating area, which overlooks Grasmere - yes I could see myself sitting here quietly writing a few poems! There are too many tourists like me wandering about today though!
Beautiful astilbe stand out against the whitewashed walls of the cottage and lilies and thistles rise up from a tangle of ferns and foliage round the garden.
It is a very natural garden, one that you feel could be yours and that you might just want to pick up a spade or trowel and do a bit of tidying and tending to the veggies growing or plant up some pots.
It was a rainy day, but there are a few little nooks and crannies where on a sunny day you could sit quietly and 'stop and rest', just as it says on garden gate as you enter the front garden.
I smile to myself at the little anecdotes from Dorothy's diary and I think to myself, if she had lived in the 21st century she would have been a blogger!
