subject: Hammerscar The Lake District [print this page] Follow the path uphill 250yds then go through an ungated gap in the wall at L (E) and ascend knoll. (The gap is 120yds below wooden gate at top of pass.) This is Hammerscar, and it commands a stunning view over Grasmere. West (1784) recommends this, or a spot near it (his directions are not clear) as a viewpoint, for Grasmere; Wordsworth rambled to this point as a schoolboy from Hawkshead, and recalled the moment later in 'Home at Grasmere' (1800):
Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came A roving Schoolboy; what the Adventurer's age Hath now escaped his memory but the hour One of a golden summer holiday, He well remembers, though the year be gone. Alone and devious from afar he came; And, with a sudden influx overpowered At sight of this seclusion, he forgot His haste ... and, sighing said, 'What happy fortune were it here to live! ' The Station whence he looked was soft and green, Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth Of Vale below, a height of hills above. For rest of body perfect was the Spot, All that luxurious nature could desire, But stirring to the Spirit;
and he resolved that 'herel Must be his Home, this Valley be his World' a wish fulfilled in 1799 when he moved into Dove Cottage. The cottage would have been visible then: now it is hidden by the Prince of Wales Hotel. To this spot also Thomas De Quincey came in 1806, a timid nineteen year old admirer of Wordsworth longing to visit his hero but too shy: Once I absolutely went forward from Coniston to the very gorge of Hammerscar, from which the whole vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with its lovely valley stretching in the distance, the lake lying immediately below, with its solemn boat like island of five acres in size, seemingly floating on its surface; its exquisite outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays and wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns.
In one quarter, a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the outlet of the lake, more directly in opposition to the spectator; a few green fields; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the water, a little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees . .. That little cottage was Wordsworth's ... Catching one hasty glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faintheartedly to Conison and so to Oxford, re infecta. Leave the Red Lion Hotel heading NW and take the small road signed 'Public footpath: Score Crag, Silver How'. It leads straight to Allan Bank, a large mansion rendered in pinkish ochre, at the top of a knoll with a commanding view over lake and valley. This was the home of William Wordsworth from 1808 to 1811 (when he moved to Grasmere Rectory). Ironically, he had been outraged when the house was built in 1805 by John Crump, a Liverpool merchant, and had told a friend:
A wretched creature, wretched in name and Nature, goaded on by his still more wretched Wife ... has at last begun to put his long impending threats in execution; and when you next enter the sweet paradise of Grasmere you will see staring you in the face . a temple of abomination, in which are to be enshrined Mr and Mrs Crump. Seriously this is a great vexation to us, as this House will stare you in the face from every part of the Vale, and entirely destroy its character of simplicity and seclusion.
From the Dove Cottage garden, Allan Bank was right in the middle of the view of Easedale hence the fury. Dorothy declared it 'a publick Sorrow'. (De Quincey claims that when first built the house fell down t the delight of locals, whilst the builders were celebrating in the Red LIon!) However, with a fourth child expected, the Wordsworths found ?ove Cottage too small; they swallowed their pride and moved into Crump's temple of abomination' in May 1808 becoming the house's Irst tenants. The owner allowed Wordsworth to layout the grounds below the house with trees, many of which are still there, so that as we look at the house from the lake we are sl'eing a landscape shaped by Wordsworth himself.
