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Brothers' Parting Stone, Patterdale
Brothers' Parting Stone
Stone of Parting
locality:-   Grisedale
civil parish:-   Patterdale (formerly Westmorland)
county:-   Cumbria
locality type:-   stone
locality type:-   memorial (?) 
coordinates:-   NY35231234
1Km square:-   NY3512
10Km square:-   NY31


photograph
BQH15.jpg (taken 17.3.2009)  
photograph
BQH16.jpg (taken 17.3.2009)  

hearsay:-  
The stone is where William and Dorothy Wordsworth parted from their brother John Wordsworth, 29 September 1800. Dorothy Wordsworth records this:-
"It was a fine day, showery, but with sunshine and fine clouds. Poor fellow my heart was right sad. I could not help thinking, we should see him again, because he was only going to Penrith."
From Penrith, John Wordsworth went to command the Earl of Abergavenny. They met again in London, 1802. John was drowned when his ship was wrecked oof the coast of Dorset, 1805. In June 1805, William and Dorothy Wordsworth visited this place again, and the poet wrote Elegaic Verses in Memory of My Brother. Canon H D Rawnsley arranged for some lines from these verses to be inscribed on the rock, 1882:-
"Here did we stop; and here looked round
While each into himself descends,
For that last thought of parting Friends
That is not to be found."
"- Brother and friend, if verse of mine
Have power to make thy virtues known,
Then let a monumental Stone
Stand - Sacred as a Shrine;"

hearsay:-  
There was a stone here, inscribed in memory of the parting of William Wordsworth and his brother John, 1800. John was drowned when his ship, The Earl of Abergavenny, was wrecked off Portland Bill, Dorset, 5 February 1805.

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