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Achievements and Performance
h) Other performance measures We were delighted to receive several gifts to our collection, the engine that drives much of our activity. Significant acquisitions include two late-C19th / earlyC20th watercolour drawings of Dove Cottage (the gift of Harry Williamson), timed perfectly to inform our new interpretation, a drawing of Eamont Bridge by Dr William Crotch, after a print by Thomas Allom (the gift of Nicholas and Cecilia Powell), a collection of lateC19th and early C20th photographs of Grasmere (the gift of Michael Rees-Davies), works by the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson (the gift of Charles and Maggie Plouviez, received by bequest), and a generous number of drawings and prints gifted by the W.W. Spooner Charitable Trust, including a view of Borrowdale by Nicholas Pocock. The breadth of our growing Lake District fine art collection was made evident by our final publication of the year, The Country of the Lakes in 1820 (the essay that was to become Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes), which was illustrated entirely by images from our own holdings. The publication was co-edited by Cecilia Powell and Stephen Hebron. We were pleased to loan items from our collection to exhibitions at the Beacon Museum in Whitehaven, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle and Wordsworth House in Cockermouth. Our vocational training programmes also continued and 14 young people benefited, as Trainees, universityfunded interns, and early career research fellows supported by the British Association of Romantic Studies.
3. Acknowledgements A great many organisations and individuals share our passion for safeguarding Wordsworth’s legacy and to celebrating his poetry as a force for good in the world. Firstly, we wish to thank our four Funding Partners for their major commitment to the Wordsworth Trust: the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the principal funder behind Reimagining Wordsworth; Arts Council England and South Lakeland District Council, whose support is fundamental to everything that we do; and Lancaster University, whose commitment to our work this year has also extended to shaping Wordsworth 250. We also thank all those organisations that have enabled Reimagining Wordsworth to become a reality, including those grant-makers whose pledges were received this year and are reflected in our accounts: the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (through the Northern Powerhouse) and Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership; the Wolfson
Foundation; the Garfield Weston Foundation; the Foyle Foundation; the John R. Murray Charitable Trust; and Cumbria Gardens Trust. We also thank the many volunteers who have helped us to achieve parts of our strategy, including Lynn Shepherd, who manages the ‘Wordsworth & Romanticism’ blog, Derek Hook and his staff for sponsoring our fundraising events at Yewfield Guesthouse in Hawkshead, Peter Brears, whose knowledge and practical skills have been invaluable in creating a reimagined Dove Cottage, and Tony Mortlock for producing a film to keep our supporters up to date as building work got underway. We are grateful to the Sir John Fisher Foundation, whose continued support for the post of Assistant Curator (Collection) enables us to give researchers access to what one recently described as “the friendliest archive in the world”, the Michael Marks Charitable Trust, with whose support we continued to promote the creation and publication of contemporary poetry, Children and the Arts, which funded the project through which we gave inspiration to schoolchildren in low-income areas of west Cumbria, and Cumbria County Council, who helped us to bring our activities to every corner of the county. We also thank those individuals upon whose generosity we depend to achieve everything that is described in this report: Patricia Grodd & Michael Stone; John & Barbara Forsyth; John & Clare Spedding; Corinna Wiltshire; the W.W. Spooner Charitable Trust, Tamsin Abbott, Kirsty Anderson, Bev Dennison, Nicholas and Cecilia Powell, the Plouviez family, Michael Rees-Davies, Christine Shaw, Michael Thomas and Harry Williamson for adding to the richness of our collection with their gifts of paintings, drawings, prints and other objects; our many Patrons and Friends; and all those other individuals, across the world, who help us to keep Wordsworth’s memory alive at Dove Cottage.
Michael McGregor The Robert Woof Director
Financial Review 1. Summary The net income for the year, including investment gains and losses, was £2,207,000 (2018/19: £458,000 net income). The delivery phase of Reimagining Wordsworth in 2019/20 has had an impact on visitor numbers and income, as the museum was closed for the whole year and Dove Cottage was only open for from late summer until November. The further closure of the site in April 2020 due to Covid-19 will not impact our income and expenditure until 2020/21 but it is a huge factor when reviewing the financial outlook. The Covid-19 crisis has come at a particularly tough time as we have used our reserves to support our business during the project and we have missed out on capitalising on reopening Dove Cottage to coincide with national celebrations of Wordsworth’s 250th anniversary. The impact of Reimagining Wordsworth can be seen in a number of areas in the financial statements. The delivery phase started in May 2018 following the approval of the bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and it is now expected to continue until early 2021. The project was subject to some delays before the onset of Covid-19 but the pandemic has exacerbated those delays as the contractors had to stop work completely for six weeks and work within social distancing rules on restarting. The National Lottery Heritage Fund has supported the project with a 75% grant of £4.1m with the remaining funding coming from a wide range of foundations and individual supporters. During the year, expenditure on Reimagining Wordsworth was £3,264,000 (2018/19: £498,000) of which £2,998,000 (2018/19: £335,000) was capitalised as assets under construction. The balance was treated as expenditure. Grant income received from the National Lottery Heritage Fund amounted to £2,548,000 (2018/19: £308,000). Other grant income, pledged in previous years but received in 2019/20, is itemised in note 3 to the full accounts. Salary costs amount to £894,000 (2018/19: £837,000). There was a pay award of 2% in April 2019 plus an increase to the national living wage. Arts Council England renewed its National Portfolio Organisation grant, received as part of the Cumbria Museum Consortium, with effect from 1 April 2018 for four years; the grant has now been extended for a further year to 31 March 2023. Expenditure against other restricted funds includes £108,000 in depreciation on the Jerwood Centre, which was funded by grants in prior years. Trading conditions for the trading subsidiary Dove Cottage Promotions Ltd (DCP) have been severely impacted by the reduction in visitor numbers throughout the year. A new café has been developed
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as part of Reimagining Wordsworth but due to delays in the development this could not open until the early part of 2020. In February 2020 Storm Ciara affected the café badly, and it had to close again; its closure is subject to an insurance claim. The loss for the year is £52,000 (2018/19: £10,000), a good proportion of which is attributable to staffing up in preparation for the initial opening of the café, which was then delayed. The repairs following Storm Ciara will be completed in July and the cafe will open under social distancing rules as soon as practicable thereafter.
2. Investments We own several properties in Town End in Grasmere in the vicinity of Dove Cottage and hold them as investment assets, with the rental income being an important source of revenue. The capital appreciation on these properties helps sustain our long-term financial security. The properties are let to a mix of staff and third parties, and rents are assessed against market rates. One property is a guest house and is let on a commercial lease. Rental income for the year was £96,000 (2018/19: £103,000): this has reduced as 3 Town End Terrace is no longer generating rental income and as there were no seasonal employees this year the rental income on 1 and 2 Lake Terrace was also reduced. In the accounts for 2018/19 two buildings were transferred to fixed assets as they are now used for general business and Old Sykeside is now held as a heritage asset due to its historical significance. Four discrete investment funds are managed by Cazenove Capital Management (the wealth management arm of Schroder plc): the Development Fund; the R.S. Woof Memorial Fund, which permanently endows the post of the Robert Woof Director; the Catalyst Endowment Fund; and the Reserve Fund, which is held in the balance sheet under cash at bank. There are no ethical restrictions on any of the funds under management but we have agreed the following statement on environmental, social and governance issues in investing. The Development Fund comprises both a permanent endowment and a designated element. Due to the restrictions placed upon the entire Development Fund by the donor of the endowment element, both components of the fund must be treated as permanent endowment. The fund overall is invested on a total return basis and the managers have investment discretion to meet a target total return of CPI + 2%. In June 2020, as part of our reaction to the Covid-19 crisis, we agreed in principle with the donor of the endowment element that some of the restrictions could be lifted. This would allow some of the Development Fund to be used to support us through this crisis and to cover any potential overspend on the Reimagining Wordsworth project.
