When their mother died in 1777, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were sent to different parts of the country to be raised by relatives. He was six and she was two years younger. It wasn't until they both grew to adulthood - another 22 years later - that they were able to live together in what they regarded as their first family home. "We have obtained an object long desired," Dorothy wrote in her journal when they moved to Grasmere in the Lake District.
Once an inn - the Dove and Olive Bough - the walls of Dove Cottage were washed in white lime to make them stand out on dark nights when travellers might be glad of shelter and sustenance. A few months before the Wordsworths' arrival, the landlord decided he could make more money letting the house and so for u £5 a year, they were able to rent this six-roomed cottage - built about 1617 - with its little garden at the back and a fine view of the lake from William's upstairs study.
Brother and sister were an industrious pair, working in the garden, chopping wood, baking, writing and, of course, walking.
The downstairs bedroom had been designated Dorothy's, leaving the upstairs one with the rain leaking through the slate roof, for William. Here, on the window ledge is his battered leather case, surprisingly small for such a travelled man. But then, they tended not to change their clothes too often in those days.
In 1802, William married Mary Hutchinson and in the bedroom is the double washstand they used with the little built-in cupboard for hiding away the dirty water until it was next needed. This is one of only three such washstands in the country, the scandalised Victorians having sawn most of them in half, to be placed out of sight of each other.
Three of their children were born in Dove Cottage and the main room - known locally as the house-room - became the focus of the family. With its latticed window, original wood panelling and large fireplace, it is a congenial room and it was here the women sewed and ironed, the children played and, miraculously, William wrote, though he sometimes withdrew to his study upstairs where he composed some of his best poetry including "The Immortality Ode", "Daffodils" and "The Solitary Reaper".
Plain living and high thinking were William's ideals, though not those of his friend Walter Scott who noted the Wordsworths had "three meals a day two of which are porridge". Scott, a regular visitor, used to stoke up with food by climbing out the window of the guest room and legging it to the local pub for extra nourishment. You can see a painting in the house-room, of the border terrier, Pepper, which he bred and gave to the Wordsworth children. Also on the wall is the Royal Warrant appointing William Poet Laureate, a post he twice declined because he abhorred the idea of writing to order and which he finally accepted, being paid 60 guineas a year and a barrel of wine for writing nothing official during his tenure.
Happiness is central to this peaceful house, whether perceived in the afternoon sunlight on the polished flagstones, in the plumped-up pillows on the bed, the diligently blackened range, the petit point cushions with the initials DW worked into them: Dora Wordsworth, William and Mary's daughter, was born in Dove Cottage. But it is outside, in the garden created by William and Dorothy, that contentment flows. A rose arches over the gate. Rowanberries shine out from hillside trees. Fern and phlox emerge from the tangle of grasses and, most homely of all to a brother and sister who found each other again - smoke from the chimney billows gently into the green foliage.
Dove Cottage and the adjoining museum are open most of the year. Tel: 0044-1539435544.
There is a programme of readings this year by noted poets, to mark the bicentenary of the Wordsworths' arrival at Dove Cottage