Epilogue

Abstract

The closing chapter focuses on two events at Dove Cottage in 1935: a transatlantic radio broadcast of Grasmere sounds to North America, and the opening of a new museum at Dove Cottage. These two events offer us perspectives through which to assess the multiple threads that run throughout this book: globalism and nationalism; accessibility and preservation; the progress of technology and a growing sense of cultural heritage; the pressures of modern life and the quest for rest and recreation; national defence and nature conservation. The chapter then gives a final consideration to the engrained traveller / tourist antithesis: how the district’s cultural landscape has been constructed through a series of competing dynamics, broadly represented by ‘democratic’ ideas of enlarging public accessibility and more ‘exclusive’ conceptions of how we should ‘worthily’ enjoy nature. Throughout, Wordsworth’s vision and language have continued to be adapted both to promote and protect, culminating in the establishment of the Lake District National Park in 1951 and, most recently, to its designation as a World Heritage Site in 2017.