Objectives and activities

The Wordsworth Trust has been keeping Wordsworth’s memory alive at Dove Cottage since it was founded over 130 years ago.

During this time, the Wordsworth Trust has acquired many of the other historic buildings that neighbour Dove Cottage, secured the great majority of Wordsworth’s manuscripts, established an archive, library and fine art collection dedicated to Romanticism and the cultural history of the Lake District, and created the Jerwood Centre, a conservation and research centre, so that these holdings can remain at Dove Cottage, one of the world’s most important literary sites.

In 2019, the Wordsworth Trust began a major transformation of its site, previously known as ‘Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum’. The project was completed in May 2021 when the site reopened with a new brand, ‘Wordsworth Grasmere’.

The Wordsworth Trust’s purposes are set out in its Memorandum and Articles of Association, and can be summarised as:

1. to provide a living memorial to William Wordsworth and his contemporaries by looking after Dove Cottage and its environs, and by preserving and developing a permanent collection; and

2. to advance public knowledge and enjoyment of the works of Wordsworth and the literature and culture of the Romantic period (c.1770–1850) through a wide range of public activities.

The Wordsworth Trust’s aims are the same in their intent as these purposes. They provide public benefit through the advancement of education, heritage, culture and the arts, and thereby meet the definition of ‘charitable purposes’ in the 2011 Charities Act.

Wordsworth wrote poetry ‘to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think and feel’. Our activities are inspired by this vision: of a world in which anyone, anywhere, can enrich their life through Wordsworth’s ideas and philosophy, regardless of means or background. In carrying them out, we have therefore taken due regard of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance.

Our activities, and the criteria that we use to measure their success, are reported in detail under ‘Achievements and Performance’. While certain activities are aimed at specific beneficiary groups, most are open to anyone; they take place all year round, some are free of charge and in some instances, charges are waived for people with limited financial means.