The house remained as a private dwelling owned by several different families throughout the years into the 1930s, then in 1937, after a failed attempt by Cockermouth library to raise enough money to buy it, the local bus company bought it with the intention of demolishing it to build a bus station. After much national press and radio attention enough money was donated for the town to buy the house back and it was handed over to the National Trust in 1938, opening as a Wordsworth memorial in 1939 and also becoming a Grade I listed building. Fast forward to the present day and the house is now furnished and presented as it would have been at the time the Wordsworth family lived there in the 1700s.
Although it was interesting seeing all the different rooms I found many of them, especially some of the bedrooms, were small and quite dark. In the whole of the house the only genuine item belonging to the Wordsworth family was William's father's desk, everything else was period or replica, and because William himself had only lived there until he was eight and had never actually written anything there I felt that the house could have belonged to anyone. However, it was the garden which interested me more and by the time I'd looked round the house and gone outside the sun was shining again and I managed to get some really nice photos.
As I walked back to the van I pondered on my visit to the Wordsworth House. With a small 'library' of modern books in one of the basement rooms and a modern exhibition room upstairs it seemed to be a bit of a mish-mash of styles, and unless I'd missed something there was very little mention of any of William's actual writing in later life. It had only taken me 45 minutes to go round the whole house and garden so I was glad I'm an NT member as personally I don't think the place is worth the £8.30 entrance fee. Would I go there again? Maybe, but only for the garden.
