| Forncett St. Peter is a small village in the Upper
Tas valley which lies a few miles west of Long Stratton.
In 1788 Dorothy Wordsworth moved to the Rectory in
Forncett St. Peter when her neice married the Rev.
William Cookson. The Rectory, a fine Georgian building,
stands next to St. Peter's Church.
Dorothy stayed in the village for 6 years and spent
her time doing parish work and going on walks -
particularly in the water meadows by the
River Tas.
At this time, her brother William Wordsworth was
still an undergraduate at Cambridge University and
she wrote to him frequently. Both of their parents had
died and so brother and sister had developed a close
relationship - one which would last through-out their
lives. Wordsworth often drew upon his sister's thoughts
and observations to furnish his poems - especially when
they both moved to the Lake District.
William visited Dorothy at Forncett during the
Christmas vacation in 1790. However, Rev. Cookson
disapproved of Wordsworth's recent love affair with
Marie Anne Vallon (who he had met in France) and that
fact that it had produced a child born out of wedlock;
William never visited again.
William went on a number of walks while staying at
Forncett and wrote an untitled sonnet which is normally
known as Sweet was the walk:
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