A LAKE District trust has received support in its bid for a multi-million pound cash injection as it approaches a historic milestone to celebrate a world-famous poet.

The Wordsworth Trust, which guards the legacy of one of the world's most famous poets, William Wordsworth, is hoping to receive a grant of £4.75m from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The HLF has given its backing to the project and has awarded a ‘development phase’ grant to enable the trust to plan the project.

The trust is looking to rejuvenate the areas around Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home during his "golden decade" in Grasmere, before the celebration of the poet's 250th birthday in 2020.

Wordsworth Trust director, Michael McGregor, said: "No visit to the Lake District is complete without a visit to Grasmere, to experience inspirational poetry in, as Wordsworth wrote, 'the loveliest spot that man ever hath found'.

"Over the next four years we can 'reimagine' Wordsworth, bringing his life and work to an even wider audience."

The trust says the money would be put towards finding ways to expand the popular tourist destination. Dove Cottage itself will remain unaltered.

However, the famous poet's manuscripts will be revamped to make them more accessible to people with the likes of multimedia features and interpretation tools, as well as adding extra life to the Wordsworth Museum.

The trust may look into expanding the grounds around Dove Cottage to create a more exciting experience for visitors looking to take in the famous home.

This year The Wordsworth Trust celebrates its 125th anniversary since it formed to save Dove Cottage, which now attracts around 50,000 visitors each year.

Peter Kleian, also of the Wordsworth Trust, said that some of the investment would go into research to get feedback from visitors, and to ask the public how they would like to make the experience better.

He said: "Some of the investment will be going towards market research, so we know exactly what the people want and what they think could make the experience even better.

"This is also about bringing more to Grasmere as a whole, and we hope that it will attract even more people to the area."

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