Grasmere is a village and tourist destination in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England, in the centre of the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, named after its adjacent

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

. It has links with the

Lake Poets The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Dorothy Wordsworth Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had no a ...

lived in Grasmere for 14 years and called it "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found."A Farewell
Retrieved 2 December 2013 Grasmere lies within the historic county of

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland'';R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref> is a historic county in North West England spanning the southern Lake District and the northern Dales. It had an ...

. In 1961, the civil parish had a population of 1,029. That of the

Ambleside Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern headwater) of Windermere, England's larges ...

and Grasmere ward was 4,475 in the 2011 census and estimated at 4,592 in 2019.

Etymology

One possibility is "the lake (mere) flanked by grass." Although early spellings with "Grys-" or "Gris(s)-" might suggest Old Norse "griss", meaning "young pig" as the first element, evidence points to the Old English/Old Norse "gres", meaning grass, with the modern form influenced by Standard English. The medial "-s(s)e-" may, as suggested by Ekwall, point to the Old Norse "gres-saer" or "grass-lake" as the original name. The element "mere" refers to a still extant word meaning "lake" or "pool".

History

and

lived in Grasmere for 14 years and called it "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found."

Geography

The village is on the

River Rothay The Rothay is a spate river of the Lake District in north-west England. Its name comes from Old Norse and translates literally as ''the red one''. This has come to mean ''trout river''. It rises close to Rough Crag above Dunmail Raise at a p ...

, which flows into Grasmere lake about 0.5 km to the south. The village is overlooked from the north-west by the rocky hill of

Helm Crag Helm Crag is a fell in the English Lake District situated in the Central Fells to the north of Grasmere. Despite its low height it sits prominently at the end of a ridge, easily seen from the village. This, combined with the distinctive summi ...

, popularly known as ''The Lion and the Lamb'' or the ''Old Lady at the organ''. These names derive from the shape of rock formations on its summit, depending on the side from which it is viewed. The several walks that begin in the village include the ascent of Helm Crag, a longer route up to Fairfield, and a moderate 200-metre ascent to Easedale Tarn. The village is also on the route of

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume '' Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'', publis ...

Coast to Coast Walk The Coast to Coast Walk is a long-distance footpath between the west and east coasts of Northern England, nominally long. Devised by Alfred Wainwright, it passes through three contrasting national parks: the Lake District National Park, th ...

The main

A591 road The A591 is a major road in Cumbria, in the north-west of England, which lies almost entirely within the Lake District national park. A 2009 poll by satellite navigation firm Garmin named the stretch of the road between Windermere and Keswic ...

connects Grasmere to the Vale of Keswick over

Dunmail Raise Dunmail Raise is the name of a large cairn in the English Lake District, which may have been an old boundary marker. It has given its name to the mountain pass of Dunmail Raise, on which it stands. This mountain pass forms part of the only low-lev ...

to the north, and to

to the south. In other directions, Grasmere is surrounded by high ground. (At Christmas 2015, the A591 was washed away on the Keswick side of Dunmail Raise, causing traffic to make a long detour. It reopened in May 2016.) To the west, a long ridge comes down from High Raise and contains the lesser heights of

Blea Rigg Blea Rigg is a fell in the English Lake District, lying between the valleys of Easedale and Great Langdale. One of the Central Fells, it is a broad plateau with a succession of rocky tops. Many routes of ascent are possible, beginning either f ...

and

Silver How Silver How is a fell in the English Lake District, standing over the village of Grasmere. How, derived from the Old Norse word ''haugr'', is a common local term for a hill or mound. Topography Silver How forms part of the Blea Rigg ridge and ...

. To the east, Grasmere is bordered by the western ridge of the

Fairfield horseshoe Fairfield Horseshoe is a classic circular hillwalking ridge walk route starting from Rydal or Ambleside in the English Lake District that takes in all the fells that surround the valley of the Rydal Beck. The round The walk is extremely popular ...

Transport

Grasmere lies on the main

A591 The A591 is a major road in Cumbria, in the north-west of England, which lies almost entirely within the Lake District national park. A 2009 poll by satellite navigation firm Garmin named the stretch of the road between Windermere and Keswick ...

road between Keswick and Kendal. It is served by the

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

555 bus service connecting towns such as Keswick and Lancaster. In summer it is also served by a Stagecoach open-top double-decker 599 service, which runs between Grasmere and

Bowness-on-Windermere Bowness-on-Windermere is a town in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. It lies next to Windermere lake and the town of Windermere to the north east with which it forms the civil parish of Windermere and Bowness. The town was hist ...

. The nearest railway station is at

Windermere Windermere (sometimes tautology (language), tautologically called Windermere Lake to distinguish it from the nearby town of Windermere, Cumbria (town), Windermere) is the largest natural lake in England. More than 11 miles (18 km) in leng ...

(9 miles), which has hourly local services.

Communal events

Rushbearing

Grasmere's famous

Rushbearing Rushbearing is an old English ecclesiastical festival in which rushes are collected and carried to be strewn on the floor of the parish church. The tradition dates back to the time when most buildings had earthen floors and rushes were used as a ...

Ceremony, centred on St Oswald's Church, has ancient origins. The present-day ceremony is an annual event which features a procession through the village with bearings made from rushes and flowers. In this procession there are also six Maids of Honour, a brass band, the church choir, and others carrying their own decorated rush-bearing.

Sports

The annual Grasmere Sports in August were first held in 1852. Participants compete in a variety of sports, including

Cumberland wrestling Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, more commonly known just as Cumberland Wrestling, is an ancient and well-practised tradition in the traditional English counties of Cumberland and Westmorland. It bears enough of a resemblance to Scottish Back ...

fell running Fell running, also sometimes known as hill running, is the sport of running and racing, off-road, over upland country where the gradient climbed is a significant component of the difficulty. The name arises from the origins of the English sport o ...

and hound trails (similar to

drag hunting Drag hunting or draghunting is a form of equestrian sport, where mounted riders hunt the trail of an artificially laid scent with hounds. Description Drag hunting is conducted in a similar manner to fox hunting, with a field of mounted riders fol ...

Sweetmeats

Grasmere contains the winner of the "Get Started Award 2014" awarded by the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs: the Handmade Chocolate Shop. Grasmere Gingerbread is made to a "secret recipe" popularised by Sarah Nelson (1815–1904). By the early 19th century, Grasmere gingerbread was being sold as fairings and as a popular seller in its own right. Poet

wrote in 1803 that she and her brother

craved the gingerbread.

Religious

Until September 2013, Grasmere's three main church parishes (

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

and

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

) gathered three times a year to celebrate mass in the Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Wayside. Grasmere also has a Quaker guest house
Glenthorne
where Quaker meetings of worship are held.

Government

The Lakes were governed by an

urban district council In England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local gove ...

, before becoming part of the Lakes Urban District in 1934. The parish was abolished on 1 April 1974 to form

Lakes A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

. Grasmere is represented by

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

politicians on the district and county councils, and at Westminster. Grasmere has lost population since the 1960s.

In Art and Literature

George Pickering George Pickering (1758–1826) was an 18th-century poet and songwriter, born in Simonburn. His most famous work is probably Donocht Head. Early life George Pickering was born in Simonburn, Northumberland in January 1758. His baptism register ...

painted many views around Grasmere, and an engraving of one of these, ''Grassmere Lake and Village, Westmorland'', was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Sketch Book, 1834, accompanied by a humorous sketch by

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. The writings of Landon are transitional between Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Her first major breakthrough ...

about a lover of poetry who, given a legacy, buys a property here only to find extraordinary steps would be required to make life bearable.

Notable persons

In birth order: *

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

(1770–1850), poet, lived in

Dove Cottage Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of ...

with his sister

(1771–1855), in the hamlet of Townend, outside Grasmere, from 1799. He breakfasted with

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

at ''The Swan'', an inn on today's A591, whose sign quotes his line, "Who does not know the famous ''Swan''?" In 1808 he moved to Allan Bank then to

Rydal Mount Rydal Mount is a house in the small village of Rydal, near Ambleside in the English Lake District. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 to his death in 1850. It is currently operated as a writer's home museu ...

. He, his wife and his sister are buried in the churchyard of St Oswald's. *

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

(1772–1834), poet, spent time at Dove Cottage and is said to have muttered stanzas for ''

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...

'' while walking across the nearby

fells A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of Man, par ...

. *

Thomas De Quincey Thomas Penson De Quincey (; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his '' Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quinc ...

(1785–1859), man of letters, rented Dove Cottage after the Wordsworths left. *

Paul Frederick de Quincey Paul Frederick de Quincey (26 November 1828 – 15 April 1894) was a 19th-century Member of Parliament in Auckland, New Zealand. Early life De Quincey was born at Grasmere, Westmoreland. He was the son of the great English writer Thomas De Qui ...

(1828–1894), son of Thomas and a New Zealand politician, was born at Grasmere. *

William Angus Knight William Angus Knight (22 February 1836 – 4 March 1916) was a Scottish Free Church minister and author and Professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University. He created the Lady Literate in Arts qualification. Life He was born in the ma ...

(1836–1916), a Scottish academic, compiled an 11-volume ''Wordsworth's Works and Life'' (1881–1889) and presented his library of Wordsworth materials to Dove Cottage. *

William Archibald Spooner William Archibald Spooner (22 July 1844 – 29 August 1930) was a British clergyman and long-serving Oxford don. He was most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionall ...

(1844–1930), an Oxford University academic and instigator of

spoonerism A spoonerism is an occurrence in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, w ...

s, was buried here, near the house of his wife's family, How Foot. * Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (1851–1920), co-founder of the National Trust, lived in Grasmere in 1915–1920. *

John Haden Badley John Haden Badley (21 February 1865 – 6 March 1967) was an English author, educator, and founder of Bedales School, which claims to have become the first coeducational public boarding school in England in 1893. Life Born in Dudley, Worces ...

(1865–1967), educationalist and founder of

Bedales Bedales School is a co-educational, boarding and day independent school in the village of Steep, near the market town of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventi ...

School, spent time with his sisters at their Grasmere home, Winterseeds. *Brigadier Gordon Hutchinson Osmaston (1898–1990), a founder member of the Himalayan Club and former director of the Survey of India, taught later at Huyton Hill School and lived in Grasmere., https://www.himalayanclub.org/hj/48/2/gordon-osmaston-and-tenzing/.
/ref> * Charles Morris (1898–1990), philosopher and Leeds University vice-chancellor, died at Grasmere. *The husband-and-wife artists William Heaton Cooper (1903–1995), landscape painter, and

Ophelia Gordon Bell Joan Ophelia Gordon Bell (1915–1975) was an English sculptor, known for her several commissions for the United Kingdom's Atomic Energy Authority. She was born in London on 1 July 1915, the daughter of the painter Winifred Gordon Bell, (''né ...

(1915–1975), sculptor, lived and are buried at Grasmere. *

Fred Yates Frederick Joseph Yates (25 July 1922 – 7 July 2008) was an English artist. Inspired by the Manchester painter L. S. Lowry, Yates set out to paint pictures about the lives of ordinary people: " ... It is the man in the street that I'm after, w ...

(1922–2008), painter, was living at Cote How near Grasmere (1900–1906) when he painted the future United States president

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

and John Haden Badley. * Robert Woof (1931–2005), academic, was the first keeper of the collections of the William Wordsworth Museum at Dove Cottage. *

Bob Barratt Denis Mervyn "Bob" Barratt (22 March 1938 – 30 January 2004) was an English record producer for EMI and founder of record-label Grasmere Records. Barratt died of liver cancer on 30 January 2004, leaving his wife and three daughters. Career ...

(1938 or 1939–2004) was the founder of the Grasmere Records label for brass band and organ music.

References

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: Grasmere
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)
South Lakeland – Ward ProfilesThe Cumbria Directory – Grasmere
*
Lake District Walks – Grasmere Walks
{{Authority control Villages in Cumbria Former civil parishes in Cumbria South Lakeland District Lake District