The 17th-century brick-and-flint cottage where English poet and painter William Blake resided from 1800 to 1803 was just listed for the first time in 85 years. The three-bedroom dwelling has everything a poet (or other human) might desire in a country cottage: a walled garden, a partly thatched roof, exposed wall timbers, a vaulted ceiling, and a history that includes Blake and his wife reading John Milton's Paradise Lost to each other, naked, in the living room. It is asking £650K ($1.03M) but the nonprofit Blake Society has until Nov. 28 to make a first offer on the cottage. Sadly for fans of the visionary poet, the organization's fundraising efforts are not going so well.
Although Blake's stay at the cottage was not entirely drama-free (during his time there he was accused of voicing "seditious and treasonable expressions" against the king, and of assaulting a soldier, though he was later cleared of all charges), he enjoyed the small village of Felpham so much that he celebrated it in a poem:
Away to sweet Felpham for heaven is there:
The Ladder of Angels descends through the air
On the turret its spiral does softly descend
Through the village it winds, at my cot it does end. Photos, below:
· Cottage for sale: Felpham, West Sussex [Jackson-Stops & Staff]
· Society Hopes to Buy William Blake Cottage [NYTimes]
· All Artist's Abodes posts [Curbed National]