William Wordsworth Landscape Designer: A Winter Garden Made with Poetry
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
November 15, 1806
On this day, William Wordsworth received a life-changing invitation from Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont to design and build a winter garden at her estate in an old gravel quarry.
This unique request would lead to what Wordsworth later called "the longest letter I ever wrote in my life" - a detailed garden design that merged poetry with horticulture.
The story begins with Lady Beaumont's bold vision to transform a desolate quarry into a winter garden. The Wordsworths - William, Dorothy, and Mary - had just arrived at Hall Farm in October 1806 when they discovered the proposed location. The site's potential immediately captured their imagination, particularly after William recalled John Addison's influential 1712 essay on winter gardens from The Spectator.
Addison had written words that would prove prophetic:
"When Nature is in her Desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren Prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a Spot of Ground which is covered with Trees that smile amidst all the Rigour of Winter."
Dorothy Wordsworth's enthusiasm is evident in her November 14 letter to Lady Beaumont, where she praised "the hillocks and slopes and the hollow shape of the whole."
Just one day later, the formal invitation arrived, igniting William's gardening imagination. As Dorothy reported on November 16:
My brother... has frequently paced over and studied the winter garden and laid some plans.
The resulting design was revolutionary for its time. Wordsworth envisioned eight distinct compartments, each telling its own story of resilience against winter's bleakness. He planned for double "fences" of evergreens, carefully selected flowers for year-round blooming, and even included an innovative fountain - quite radical for 1806. The garden was designed to be "a spot which the winter cannot touch," presenting no images of "chilliness, decay, or desolation."
Today, while much of Wordsworth's original garden has changed, fragments remain at Coleorton - including some ancient yews, Scotch pines, hollies, and a tall chimney from one of the original cottages. More importantly, his vision of creating hope and beauty in the depths of winter continues to inspire garden designers and poets alike.
