The National Trust says work will start in the autumn on Wordsworth House in Cockermouth.

The house was the birthplace of the poet in 1770. He spent the first eight years of his life there.

The aim is to give visitors an exciting, interactive and inspirational experience, says the Trust. Some £480,000 is coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund and follows confirmation of £192,000 from the Cumbria Rural Development Fund.

The National Trust will be part-funding a further £150,000. The Trust says it will carefully recreate the sort of Georgian home that Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy would have known in their childhood.

The house and garden will also give a real flavour of life in 18th Century Cockermouth "warts and all".

The house will be redecorated, rewired and redisplayed, producing a life-like Georgian home, in which visitors will experience the sights, sounds and smells of domestic life in Wordsworth's day.


[news.bbc.co.uk] />
Maybe they could skip the smells?

pam

No they can't skip the smells. Smells are one of the in things in the interactive experience. The Jorvik Centre in York (viking life) and Tales of Robin Hood in Nottingham both do it, and yes it is what you would expect.

The best time to take nephews and neices to Jorvik or Tales of Robin Hood is when you have a heavy cold. That way, they get the educational experience and you skip the smells. Even better, if they gave you the cold in the first place, you get your revenge.