Mrs. Coleridge's Kitchen

We went down to Nether Stowey today to visit the cottage that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his family lived in from 1797 to 1800.

The National Trust have deservedly won awards for this property where the friendly staff encourage you to pick up the artefacts, rummage through drawers and handle the copies of his manuscript poems and letters; it was here that he wrote many of his best known poems such as The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.

I ended up feeling sorry for his wife Sara, who seemed to have a very hard life, running the house and dealing with the death in infancy of their 2nd child while he was roaming the Quantocks or touring Europe with the Wordsworths! He seems to have been something of an impractical dreamer and rather self-absorbed; not surprised that they separated eventually.

Definitely worth a visit if you're down this way.

Least said about Yeovil's third loss in a week the better!