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New Wordsworth Trust Research Centre Opened By Seamus Heaney
By David Prudames
01/06/2005
Image: Shows a photograph of the new stone-built Jerwood Centre in Grasmere, Cumbria.
The £3.15 million Jerwood Centre was built using traditional Lakeland materials and designed to fit into the area's famous landscape. Photo: Charlotte Wood.
Seamus Heaney is to help open a new facility dedicated to the study of Wordsworth and British Romanticism in the poet’s Cumbrian home village of Grasmere.
Heaney, himself a famous poet and a Nobel Laureate, will officially open the new £3.15 million Jerwood Centre on behalf of the Wordsworth Trust on June 2 2005. For trust director Dr Robert Woof, "it is a fitting tribute to the leading poet of the Romantic era that the leading poet of our own times should pay tribute in this way."
Located close to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s former home, the new centre will provide climate-controlled conditions to house the trust’s unrivalled collection of books, manuscripts and artwork relating to the Romantic period.
Wordsworth's lifemask by Benjamin Robert Hayden sits in the new Reading Room. Photo: Charlotte Wood.
"If you want to study Shakespeare you have to go to the Folger Library in America, but to study Wordsworth and the Romantics you now come to Grasmere, right in the centre of the landscape that provided their inspiration," said Dr Woof.
"No other writer of importance has this resource where almost all of his manuscripts, books, letters and paraphernalia are found where he lived and drew his inspiration from."
The centre consists of a three-storey building with a separate rotunda built alongside, which is linked by a glass bridge. On the top floor a reading room offers contemporary and significant editions of poetry for researchers, while the middle floor is a work space where art and documents can be cared for and restored.
Wordsworth Trust’s collection of 60,000 letters, books, manuscripts, paintings and drawings is housed in the basement.
The Reading Room also holds Wordsworth's own library and many rare first editions. Photo: Charlotte Wood.
The rotunda, meanwhile, explores the context of Dove Cottage and the rest of the site as well as Wordsworth himself and the other Romantic poets.
Back in 1992, architects Benson + Forsyth were set the task of creating a 21st century building in traditional Lakeland materials to fit into a difficult site.
With backing from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, the Jerwood Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund, the original concept was then taken forward by Napper Architects.
The rotunda includes an introduction to the context of Dove Cottage as well as Wordsworth, his contemporary poets and the Romantics generally. Photo: Charlotte Wood.
For Liz Forgan, chair of the HLF, the centre represents a perfect example of the way organisations such as hers have been able to work with museums to address the problems caused by lack of funding in the past.
"The centre represents a haven for people from all over the country to come and learn about, and be inspired by, the works of some of our greatest writers," she said.
"I’m delighted that we have been able to support and help realise the trust in their vision to create a state of the art centre for British Romanticism.
Her words were echoed by Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport: "The Jerwood Centre will help to safeguard the long term future of the significant historic assets of Cumbria," she added.
"It is an excellent example of how cultural heritage can be a driving force for regeneration, economic diversification and growth. In addition to boosting tourism, cultural heritage has an important part to play in defining and preserving the identity of communities, regions, and the nation as a whole."
Wordsworth Museum
Dove Cottage, Town End, Grasmere, LA22 9SH, Cumbria, England
Open: Daily 0930-1730
Last tour 1700
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