Wordsworth House Sockbridge

Extract from Sockbridge and Tirril Heritage Trail

Wordsworth House, formerly Sockbridge House, was built in 1699 but incorporated a building of 1601. The first owners, Reginald and Elizabth Dobson, have their initials (RED) carved over the door. Their granddaughter married Cuthbert Collingwood, father of the admiral who was Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar. Mrs Collingwood sold the house to Richard Wordsworth, Viscount Lowther's agent. Richard was William Wordsworth's grandfather. In the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 he fled to Patterdale with the "county treasure" to save it from the rebels while Mrs Wordsworth entertained Jacobite officers at their home.