Literary Passion · Grasmere, Cumbria
Dove Cottage (the Wordsworths at Grasmere)
The tiny lakeland cottage of William, his adored sister Dorothy — whose journals record wearing his wedding ring the night before he married — and his bride Mary. The intensity of the brother-sister bond has fascinated and divided scholars ever since; the documented record is devotion, and this entry claims nothing more.
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Nearby on the map
When England's 1754 Marriage Act required parental consent for under-21s, lovers simply crossed the first Scottish village on the coaching road — where declaration before witnesses was marriage enough. The blacksmith's anvil became the altar of eloping England, and remains one of the world's great wedding destinations.
Documented historyHot spotLiterary PassionThe Globe Inn, Dumfries (Burns & Anna Park)Dumfries, Dumfriesshire · ScotlandBurns called the Globe his 'favourite howff'; here he had a passionate affair with barmaid Anna Park that inspired the song 'The Gowden Locks of Anna'. Their daughter was raised by Burns's wife Jean Armour
Documented historyLiterary PassionTop Withens (Wuthering Heights inspiration)Haworth, West Yorkshire · EnglandThe wild, windswept ruin traditionally taken as the setting for the Earnshaw home in Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' — the most famous doomed passion in English literature. A Brontë Society plaque (1964) notes the buildings never matched her description but the desolate moorland setting 'may have been in her mind'.
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