My friend, Cathy, and I hadn't been inside Coleridge's storied cottage in Nether Stowey long before one of the volunteers asked me the time-honoured question: 'Have you been here before?' And I had, but realised it must have been almost 20 years earlier, as I'd been with my ex-husband, who, I recall, was in a mood because he was missing a football match on the telly.
I didn't feel I could count my second visit, which occurred since the cottage underwent its major restoration in 2010-11, as on that second occasion I'd been with the Northerner, and since he'd never been there before and I had, it was only fair he went in for a look around in the limited time we had that day, while I waited outside with our then dog, Ted, and watched the swifts wing up and down the street. (I did get a poem out of my missed visit, though.)
Last summer, when we visited the behemoth that is Wordsworth Grasmere in the Lakes, I found myself longing for the remembered simplicity of Coleridge Cottage and its garden. A re-visit was long overdue.
my favourite too
'You
would smile to see my eye rolling up to the ceiling in a lyric fury, and on my
knee a Diaper pinned'
While enthusing with the volunteer who welcomed us to the cottage, I'd felt it politic to acknowledge Sara Coleridge, who was left to shoulder the lion's share of the work of running a house and raising the children, while her husband (who surely had ADHD, given the expansive projects he kept dreaming up but never brought to fruition) spent much of his time in Nether Stowey nipping up the end of the garden and sneaking into Thomas Poole's library, going off on long walks with the Wordsworths, and drinking laudanum). I suppose I was hoping to avoid a lecture on The Price Sara Paid, and indeed, the volunteer warned me there was strong feeling in favour of Sara amongst some of her peers.
I think it's perfectly possible to care about both Coleridges. I feel huge empathy for Sara - I too was left alone much of the time to care for four small and decidedly interesting children - but it's also necessary to acknowledge that Samuel was an exceptional poet, one of our greatest (whereas my ex-husband was just off philandering). And maybe STC had to follow where his mind led him in order to produce 'The Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan', neither of which would have been written in quite the same way without his opium habit and his wanderings through this wild and remote part of Somerset.
I drew the conclusion many years ago that poets probably shouldn't get married.
The Ancient Mariner
Samuel Coleridge at the age of about 45
This window is engraved with the scenes Samuel and Sara would have seen when they looked through it
At the back of the house, as pre-warned, we were cornered by one of Sara's zealots, who gleefully told us about the time Sara spilt hot milk over Samuel's feet, rendering him unable to go walking with William and Dorothy. (Though of course he did get a poem out of his missed walk.)
The well
The privy
Papaver Somniferum
Swifts in the garden
After sating ourselves with cottage and garden, Cathy and I headed to our favourite Hood Arms at Kilve for a vegetarian Sunday lunch, which was magnificent but left neither of us with room for dessert or even a cream tea at the nearby Chantry, which was a crying shame. Instead we waddled from the car park to the beach, enjoying the view down to Devon, across to Wales and up the Severn estuary.
A fine day out. I could make a habit of it.
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