Category: Holiday Ideas

Follow In The Footsteps Of Famous Poets

Light shimmering on the water around the headland

There is something decidedly understandable about how the UK landscape has influence generations of British poets. The dramatic scenery that typifies the coastal regions of the British Isles and the tranquil nature of the countryside has spurred on hundreds, if not thousands, of creative minds to produce some of the most defining work over the past centuries. With William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday coming up in April, there is a real literary and poetic feel to taking a UK break and exploring some of the areas that have inspired so many great poets.

From Burns to Wordsworth, the peaceful Lake District to the roaring waves off the Scottish coast, here are 5 poetry themed holidays to experience this year.

Dorset (Thomas Hardy) – The Victorian poet and novelist is perhaps more celebrated now than he ever was in his lifetime. A Dorset native (he was born in the picturesque village of Stinsford), Hardy produced a mountain of work focusing on the social constraints of the Victorian Age and is among the most well-known of 19th and early 20th century poets.

Hardy incorporated rural life into his poetry (The Darkling Thrush for instance) and visitors to Dorset can see a way of life and a landscape that influenced the author of the highly controversial novel ‘Jude the Obscure’ as it has not changed in centuries. A tour of Thomas Hardy’s Dorset takes in his birthplace; places that inspired his novels and poems and served as locations in his works; and the site of his grave in Stinsford parish church. A must for any fan of Hardy or, indeed, poetry before the First World War.

Herefordshire (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning)

Another prominent Victorian era poet, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning is famous for penning Sonnet no.43 (How Do I Love Thee?) in 1845 and spent her childhood on a spacious estate in the Malvern Hills in Herefordshire. She went on to marry Robert Browning, famed for various plays and poems himself, and the two are among the most celebrated literary figures in the past 200 years.

The Herefordshire market town of Ledbury, where the childhood estate of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning was located, holds the UK’s biggest poetry festival in July every year and even over 150 years after her death, poetry is still very much a part of the local culture in this part of the West Midlands.

Devon (Sir Walter Raleigh)

As one of the most colourful figures in English history, Sir Walter Raleigh is a great starting point in exploring Devon on the south coast of England. The poet’s (also spy, politician, aristocrat and any number of other occupations he held in the 16th and 17th centuries) most famous work, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, gives a glimpse into his character and he is equally well-known for popularising tobacco in England (the small port town of Bideford is where the first shipment landed).

Visitors to the county can see his birthplace and the place of his arrest, Exeter Inn in Ashburton. The poet (and jack of all trades it seems) got on the wrong side of James I and was sent to the Tower of London and beheaded for treason in 1681.

Dumfries and Galloway (Robert Burns)

Popularised by a series of literary significant works such as A Red, Red Rose and Auld Lang Syne, the Scot is probably the most famous poet on this list. Rabbie Burns grew up in Dumfries and Galloway and was one of the leading figures in the British Romantic movement that defined the late 18th century.

The captivating windswept coastline undoubtedly had an effect on Burns and his poetry, and visitors can explore a museum built around the cottage of his birthplace in Alloway, just south of Ayr on the south-west coast of Scotland. Enjoy a drink in The Globe Inn, Burns’ local where he was fond of a dram or two, and the Robert Burns House (where he spent his final years) is located in Dumfries itself. Also, the Writers Museum which is in Edinburgh hosts a permanent collection of his poems.

Lake District (William Wordsworth)

Another defining figure of the Romantic Movement, Wordsworth’s poem Dafodills is one of the most popular pieces of poetry in the past few centuries. Visitors to Cumbria can experience his family home at Rydal Mount in Ambleside, as well as Dove Cottage in Grasmere where he lived with his sister.

There is also a Wordsworth Museum next door to the cottage and if you visit the area with its old England feel, enchanting scenery, quaint villages and tranquility, you can see where his inspiration often came from.

The UK has been a prominent breeding ground for poets and literary figures for centuries. With self-catering cottages spread out in many of the areas of poetry significance, you can explore and walk in the footsteps of some of the most famous names to ever pick up a pen.

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