William Cowper's Summer House, Olney
Introduction
The photograph on this page of William Cowper's Summer House, Olney by A J Paxton as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
William Cowper's Summer House, Olney
Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 23 Sep 2020
Summer house of the poet William Cowper, who lived in the nearby Orchard Side House, now a museum, from 1768 to 1786. Cowper described the summer house as his 'verse manufactory' and 'a refuge from all intrusion'. After his death in 1800 it became a literary shrine, visited by many admirers of his work, who signed their names on the plaster walls inside, 'something we don't encourage today', say the museum. The summer house stood in a physic garden, the herbal garden of an apothecary, a late neighbour of Cowper's. The fruiting tree to the left of the summer house is a medlar, which produces fruits which are eaten when extremely overripe and soft.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.151835
Longitude
-0.701039