§ 2A · Spring and Summer Weekends in the Lake DistrictThe Lyrical Ballads Tour.
Walking with Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Three days in the Lake District, walking where they walked. Following the footsteps, and the spirit, of two poets who found everything they needed in this landscape.
Three days, always beginning on a Saturday and ending on the Monday. Small groups, eight to ten people. Four weekends, spread across spring and summer, when the Lakes are at their best.
Plate I · A slower kind of morning§ 2A.1 · Spring and Summer Weekends in the Lake DistrictA slower kind of weekend.
There's no itinerary crammed with things to see. Mornings are for walking: long, unhurried, on paths that have been walked for over two centuries. When we're not walking, we're either writing (quiet time with a notebook, letting the day settle) or visiting the places that mattered most to the two poets. There's space for all three, and space between them too.
We keep numbers small on purpose. Eight to ten people means real conversation is possible, with each other, and with the landscape you're standing in.
Bring boots, a rucksack, hiking poles if that's your thing. We'll bring the rest.
§ 2A.2 · The Poets & the BookThe book that changed English poetry and started the Romantic movement.
In 1798, two young poets published a slim, unassuming volume. It is now widely considered the book that started English Romanticism. Lyrical Ballads reshaped the landscape of English poetry: fittingly enough, since this landscape had first shaped them. It argued, in its very grain, that poetry didn't need grand subjects or elevated language. It needed only to look closely at ordinary life, and say what it saw plainly and truly. It began as two friends, walking.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had found each other a few years earlier, and their friendship (restless, argumentative, endlessly walking) was the engine behind it. Wordsworth made his home at Dove Cottage in Grasmere in 1799; Coleridge followed him north within the year. Together they walked these fells for miles at a time, talking, composing aloud, revising as they went. Wordsworth's now-famous preface would soon make the case for what he called “the real language of men”. This was the country they returned to daily, the country that fed so much of what came after.
This is the ground that made them. We think it's worth walking.
Lyrical Ballads Tour FAQs
A few honest questions.
How much is the Lyrical Ballads Tour and what does it include?
The weekend is £425 per person. That covers three days of guided fell walking on paths Wordsworth and Coleridge are known to have walked, visits to sites that mattered to both poets, quiet time set aside for writing, discounted access to some of the area's best places to eat, and a pack prepared for you before you arrive.
When does the tour run?
Four weekends across spring and summer 2027: 17 to 19 April, 8 to 10 May, 12 to 14 June, and 10 to 12 July. Each weekend runs Saturday to Monday.
How small are the groups?
Small on purpose. Every retreat is capped at ten, so everyone can be heard and no one has to perform.
How many people are on each weekend?
Eight to ten. We keep numbers small on purpose, so real conversation is possible with each other and with the landscape you’re standing in.
How fit do I need to be?
Two of the walks are long and one is short, on Lake District fell paths that have been walked for over two centuries. If you’re comfortable spending most of a day on your feet in hill country, you’ll be at home. Bring boots, a rucksack, and hiking poles if that’s your thing.
Where does the Lyrical Ballads Tour take place?
In the Lake District, in Cumbria. It’s the country where Wordsworth and Coleridge lived out much of their working lives, and the ground that fed the poetry they went on to write.