
Greta Hall is a house in
Keswick in the
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...
of England. It is best known as the home of the poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
and
Robert Southey
Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...
.
Overview
The official address of Greta Hall is Main Street, Keswick, but it is located some 150 metres to the north east of the road on higher ground. The house is described by
Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...
:
Notable tenants and visitors
The poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
lived at Greta Hall with his family from 24 July 1800 until 1803 and regularly visited
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
in
Grasmere. Coleridge's daughter
Sara
Sara may refer to:
People
* Sara (given name), a feminine given name
People with the given name
* Sara Aboobacker (1936–2023), Indian writer and translator
* Sara Ahmed (born 1969), British-Australian writer
* Sara Allgood (1880–1950), Ir ...
was born at Greta Hall in 1802.
Robert Southey
Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...
and his wife came to stay with the Coleridges in 1803, and took over the tenancy of Greta Hall when Coleridge left in 1804. Southey lived there until his death in 1843.
Greta Hall was visited by a number of the
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...
and other literary figures including
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...
,
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romanticism, Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had ...
,
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary criticism, literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history ...
,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...
,
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...
,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
,
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...
,
Sir George Beaumont,
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764� ...
and
Mary Lamb
Mary Anne Lamb (3 December 1764 – 20 May 1847) was an English writer. She is best known for the collaboration with her brother Charles Lamb, Charles on the collection ''Tales from Shakespeare'' (1807). Mary suffered from mental illness, and i ...
1802,
Thomas De Quincey
Thomas Penson De Quincey (; Thomas Penson Quincey; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his ''Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821).Eaton, Horace Ainsworth, ''Thomas De Q ...
and
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
. On July 5, 1877
Pedro II
'' Dom'' PedroII (Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga; 2 December 1825 – 5 December 1891), nicknamed the Magnanimous (), was the second and last monar ...
, the
Emperor of Brazil
The monarchs of Brazil (Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''monarcas do Brasil'') were the imperial head of state, heads of state and hereditary rulers of Brazil from the House of Braganza that reigned from the creation of the Brazilian monarchy ...
, and his wife
Empress Teresa Cristina
Dona Teresa Cristina (14 March 182228 December 1889), nicknamed "the Mother of the Brazilians", was Empress of Brazil as the consort of Emperor Dom Pedro II from their marriage on 30 May 1843 until 15 November 1889, when the monarc ...
arrived in Keswick from Scotland anxious to see the memorials of Robert Southey, of whose "History of Brazil" he is said to have spoken with gratification. Entering Crosthwaite Church, he inspected the monument to the poet, reading the inscription on it by Wordsworth, and after visiting the Laureate's grave in the churchyard, went over to Greta Hall.
Later times
Between 1872 and 1887 it was a girls’ school. In 1909 it was bought by
Canon Rawnsley and rented to the headmaster of
Keswick School
Keswick School is a coeducational 11–18 academy in Cumbria, United Kingdom rated 'Outstanding' by Ofsted in 2024 with 1200 pupils on roll. There are 260 students in the sixth form and 40 boarders.
The school is the successor of th ...
as a girls’ boarding house.
[Bott, p. 147] In 1921 it was bought by the governors of the school and remained a girls’ boarding house until 1994.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick, Cumbria, Keswick is a civil parish and a town in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area of Cumbria, England. It contains 51 Listed building#England and Wales, listed building ...
*
Dove Cottage
Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of ...
*
Rydal Mount
Rydal Mount is a house in the small village of Rydal, Cumbria, Rydal, near Ambleside in the English Lake District. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 to his death in 1850. It is currently operated as a writer' ...
*
Wordsworth House
Wordsworth House is a Georgian townhouse situated in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England, and in the ownership of the National Trust. It was built in the mid-18th century. William Wordsworth was born in the house in 1770. The house is a Grade I lis ...
References
Sources
*
External links
Greta HallKeswick home of Robert Southey
Grade I listed buildings in Cumbria
Houses in Cumbria
Keswick, Cumbria
Robert Southey
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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