THE COLERIDGE WAY
When a chance meeting brought together Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth for the first time in 1795, the pair struck up a poetic and personal relationship that would forever change the discipline of poetry. And the timeless beauty of the southwest of England played no small part in their achievements.
Twenty-two years after that meeting, Coleridge rented a charming cottage in Nether Stowey, near Bridgwater in Somerset, and lived there with his young wife Sara and baby son, Hartley. The move was driven by the poet’s desire for a simple life of walking, writing and gardening – and he found it. During his three years in Somerset, he would ramble for miles each day across the Quantock Hills and Exmoor – the summits of which offer spectacular views over the surrounding moorland and the Bristol Channel. These long walks inspired some of his best-known works. Indeed, it was while living at Nether Stowey that he wrote , , and some.
