Allan Bank and Grasmere

Allan Bank is a villa on the hillside above Grasmere village where William Wordsworth lived from 1808 with his family and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and wrote his Guide to the Lakes; Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, a co-founder of the National Trust, lived here later and left it to the charity in 1920. A fire in 2011 destroyed most of the contents, and rather than refurnish it the Trust opened the house in 2012 as a relaxed, deliberately unfinished space: carry a self-serve tea or coffee through the rooms, browse the second-hand bookshop in the Morning Room and see changing art displays. Outside are wooded grounds and the 1830s Billiard Room built for Thomas Dawson; dogs on leads are welcome downstairs and in the grounds. Reviewers love the laid-back feel and the help-yourself drinks, though some find the house thin on Wordsworth. Tips from visitors: there is no parking on site, so use the village pay and display and walk ten minutes, and the woodland trail is steep.