A visit to Coleridge Cottage and Kilve

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.

A Poetry Pilgrimage through the Wild West

To Devon via the scenic route. And since my partner in poetry hadn't been there, a visit to the cottage at Nether Stowey where Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his family lived from 1797 to 1799 seemed apt. 

I'd been there before, so while he fossicked about inside, Ted and I sat outside the pub and birdwatched.  A squeal of brakes and the slamming of car doors announced the arrival of a gang of swifts from distant climes. I wonder what the resident birds make of the new arrivals each May.  Probably not too different from the villagers when Samuel, Sarah, William Wordsworth and Dorothy descended on the area. 

After lunch. a drop of Rich's cider and a delve in Lyrical Ballads in the garden of the Hood Arms in Kilve, we popped down to the beach to let Ted stretch his legs. I love Kilve's delightful shore, as Wordsworth called it, though this time, post broken ankle, I found its stony terrain challenging.

Kilve has found its way into a couple of my poems too.  I love scrabbling about in the hope of finding a fossil or two.  I did see a selection, all on hefty pieces of rock.  I always wonder how many people have struggled to get them back to their car, only to give up en route.  Much better to leave such impressive specimens where they lie - they've been there for millions of years, after all.

After a good scramble about, we made our way to Watchet to see the statue by Alan B Herriot of the Ancient Mariner (which also pitches up in a poem of mine).

Salty sea dogs

Our final stop, via a quick dash through Dunster, was Tarr Steps, an ancient clapper bridge over the River Barle in pretty much the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately for us, we arrived there gasping for a cup of tea five minutes after they's stopped serving tea and coffee and fifty-five minutes before the pub opened, and da yoof behind the counter was not inclined to pop the kettle back on. 

The bridge, which has been rebuilt following flooding twice since I last saw it, was looking good ...

... though I have to say, it's the Second Severn Crossing of clapper bridges. Impressive in a burly sort of way, but lacking the grace of, say, the clapper at Postbridge on Dartmoor. 

The Barle, and then the River Exe escorted us off the moor and as far as Tiverton, beyond which we rejoined the motorway and completed our journey south and west, all poetried up and ooh! what's that feeling? ... happy.