Why is Grasmere Town End special?
Grasmere Town End is a hamlet that has changed little since Wordsworth's time with architectural and historic character. This includes:
- International significance as a centre for Wordsworth heritage, focused around Dove Cottage, the home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth from 1799 to 1808, and the Wordsworth Museum.
- Location on a former packhorse track, now a tree-lined lane, up to White Moss Common.
- Few buildings less than 150 years old, and several good examples of architecture influenced by the Lakeland vernacular style.
- Award-winning example of contemporary architecture using traditional materials in the form of the Jerwood Centre, built in 2005 to house the collections of the Wordsworth Trust.
- Tightly clustered hamlet with houses tucked into the steep hill slope that rises to the east of the hamlet.
- Strong building lines and front elevations that open directly onto the street, giving strong definition to the streets and lanes, a characteristic that is reinforced by the strong lines of the Jerwood Centre.
- Setting softened by the presence of several large and mature trees in the centre of the hamlet and by a backdrop of green trees rising above the hamlet to the east.
- Important roofscapes of local slate stone when viewed from the upper heights of the village, especially down on to the Waterside Hotel.
- The palette of building materials reflecting the underlying geology of dark grey and purple slate stone, with contrasting blue grey detailing for quoins, window and door surrounds, drip moulds and chimneys.
- Significant views entering the hamlet from the south to Grasmere Lake and Helm Crag; and from the north over Lake Grasmere and to the west over the lake to Silver How.
- A large purpose built hotel on the lake shore as testimony to the nineteenth-century tourist industry that Wordsworth did so much to inspire.
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