Old Cumbria Gazetteer - Rock of Names, Wythburn


	Rock of Names, Wythburn
	Rock of Names
site name:-	Thirlmere
locality:-	Wythburn
civil parish:-	St John's Castlerigg and Wythburn (formerly Cumberland)
county:-	Cumbria
locality type:-	memorial
locality type:-	rocks
coordinates:-	NY320153 (originally)
coordinates:-	NY34220705 (today)
1Km square:-	NY3215
1Km square:-	NY3407
10Km square:-	NY31
site name:-	Dove Cottage
locality:-	Grasmere
civil parish:-	Lakes (formerly Westmorland)
county:-	Cumbria

MN photo:-	The rock was 'rescued' again in 1984, transferred to the garden of Dove Cottage where the pieces were incorporated into a model of the original rock with missing letters re-carved.
	BLP81.jpg The rock as re-erected behind the Wordsworth Museum. (taken 15.2.2006) BLP82.jpg The upper initials:- "W.W / M H" (taken 15.2.2006)

evidence:-	old photograph:- Bell 1880s-1940s
source data:-	Photograph, sepia, Rock of Names, Wythburn, St John's Castlerigg and Wythburn, Cumberland, by Herbert Bell, photographer, Ambleside, Westmorland, 1890s. click to enlarge HB0738.jpg click to enlarge HB0739.jpg item:- Armitt Library : ALPS402 Image © see bottom of page

evidence:-	old text:- Philip/Wilson 1890s placename:- Rock of Names
source data:-	Guide book, The English Lake District, published by George Philip and Son, 32 Fleet Street, London, Philip, Son and Nephew, Liverpool, Lancashire, and Titus Wilson, Kendal, Westmorland, now Cumbria, before 1895. "'THE ROCK OF NAMES.'" "'O thought of pain / That would impair it or profane! / And fail not thou loved Rock! to keep / Thy charge when we are laid asleep.'" "So wrote Wordsworth. The rock was on the right hand side of the old road now submerged, and on it were carved the initials:-" "W.W. (William Wordsworth)." "M.H. (Mary Hutchinson)." "D.W. (Dorothy Wordsworth)." "S.T.C. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)." "J.W. (John Wordsworth)." "S.H. (Sarah Hutchinson)." "As the rock could not be saved from submergence, various applications were made to the Corporation of Manchester for leave to remove it, and ultimately it was agreed to allow it to be taken to the Wordsworth Institute, Cockermouth. In attempting to do this, however, it went to pieces - it was blown up by the workmen making the dam. The fragments containing the initials were preserved, and have been built into a cairn on the solid base of the mountain, at a point above the new road diversion, in a line with the rock from which they were taken. This was done by persons in the neighbourhood."

evidence:-	descriptive text:- Rawnsley 1894 placename:- Rock of Names
source data:-	Book, Literary Associations of the Lake District, by Canon Hardwick Drummond, Rawnsley, published by James MacLehose and Sons, Glasgow, Scotland, 1894. vol.2 pp.218-225:- "We have now reached the little cairn perched on a boulder rock above the road, just beyond the "Straining Well" for the Manchester water-conduit. The cairn, carefully built, contains only the fragments of certain letters, which are all that we are able to save from the cruel blasting powder of the contractor who wished to quarry the "Rock of Names" for material to make the water-dam. There, by the old road just beneath us, had stood, carefully guarded by moss and lichen, unknown save to the readers of the bard, that memorial of the tryst of the poets. For they are all poets who wrought their initials painfully upon the hard volcanic ash, and graved upon the "rock's smooth breast," letters" ""That once seemed only to express Love that was love in idleness." " "Wordsworth, the tallest of the party, cut his initials highest up, W. W. Next to him, because she loved him so, were wrought out the initial letters of the maiden name of his late affianced bride, M. H. ... And underneath the initials of Mary Hutchinson came the letters D. W. Below and close to Dorothy Wordsworth's name was written the initials of the man who, more than any other, Wordsworth excepted, honoured and understood Dorothy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was for his sake that the tryst was held here, he was then living at Keswick; ..." "... other poets' names are on the Rock, for John Wordsworth and Sara Hutchinson had all the poet's feeling within their souls, and they too laboured with the penknife; he, the sailor, perhaps, with more skill than they all. At least on infers that brother John ... is responsible for the initials J. W. It is impossible to believe, had it been otherwise, that Wordsworth would have written the lines descriptive of the company of stone gravers:" ""Meek women, men as true and brave As ever went to a hopeful grave: Their hands and mine, when side by side, With kindred zeal and mutual pride, We worked until the Initials took Shapes that defied a scornful look." " "It was with the sorrow of that brave saior's untimely end heavy upon him that Wordsworth wrote the poem entitled The Rock of Names; and pathetic it is to think of the power the Rock had to console and comfort:" ""Long as for us a genial feeling Survives, or one in need of healing, The power, dear Rock, around thee cast, Thy monumental power, shall last For me and mine!" " ""The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream," " "to give our world-blinded souls a light, and to preserve the wayside shrine of the poets, a sanctuary for high thought and inspiring association still."

evidence:-	map:- Parker 2002
source data:-	Atlas, An Atlas of the English Lakes, by John Wilson Parker, published by Cicerone Press, Milnthorpe, Cumbria, 2002

evidence:-	old print:- Goodwin 1887 (edn 1890) placename:- Rock of Names
source data:-	Print, etching? The Rock of Names, Wythburn, Cumberland, by Harry Goodwin, published by Swan Sonnenschein and Co, Paternoster Square, London, 1890. click to enlarge PR1616.jpg Tipped in opposite p.222 of Through the Wordsworth Country, by William Knight. printed at lower centre:- "The Rock of Names / Thy monumental power shall last / for me and mine" printed at lower right:- "HG" item:- JandMN : 382.46 Image © see bottom of page

MN photo:-	The rock was 'rescued' again in 1984, transferred to the garden of Dove Cottage where the pieces were incorporated into a model of the original rock with missing letters re-carved.
	BRR37.jpg Initials:- "DW" (taken 7.10.2009)

hearsay:-	There is a plaque by the lake:-
	"THE ROCK OF NAMES / Fragments of a rock on which William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge and their friends had carved their initials 1801-1802 were preserved by Canon Rawnsley in a cairn at this spot 1886-1984. / They were given by the North West Water Authority to the Dove Cottage Trust in 1984 and may be seen incorporated in a rock face behind the Grasmere and Wordsworth Museum. / The original 'Rock of Names' lay beside the lake and was blown up in constructing the much larger modern reservoir."

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