Welcome to Orchard Side, the home o
f William Cowper, renowned 18th century poet from 1768 to 1786. Walk back in time through rooms featuring numerous personal artefacts and belongings. Discover Cowper’s comic sense of humour, his poetry and writings, the highs and lows in his life and his love of gardening and animals – especially his pet hares.
Discover how his friend John Newton‘s life and personal experience inspired him to write the world’s most famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’, here in Olney. Learn about his time as a slave trade captain, as a slave himself; how he became the curate of the parish church, his involvement in the abolition of slavery and his spiritual influence on William Wilberforce.
Explore Orchard Side, discovering the many personal belonging of William Cowper and John Newton.
See also our displays of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire lace, as well archaeological finds and local history from Olney. (Move??)
Option to enlarge the image
NEW EXHIBITION DISPLAY in Mr Cowper’s Bedroom – William Cowper and His Animals
Rarely seen on public display, the Museum is exhibiting one of Cowper’s letters to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, at Strawberry Hill and written from Weston Underwood. The letter is full of news of life in 1788 and of local people. It begins with a mention of Cowper’s dog Beau who sits on his knee as he writes.
Also included is this painting ‘Cowper’s Dog ‘Beau’ Bringing a Water Lily from the River Ouse and Laying It at His Master’s Feet’ by William Samuel Wright.
This depicts the event that inspired one of Cowper’s most popular poems ‘ The Dog and the Waterlily’ and subtitled ‘No Fable’, written also in 1788.
Read William’s poem online here
William Samuel Wright was the father of Thomas Wright who was the driving force behind the establishment of the Museum and its opening in 1900. There are several other paintings by William Wright throughout the Museum which were produced for that first opening.
For our younger visitors there is a basket of toys which are all animals that Mr Cowper had as pets.
You can also have a go at finding the C & N Hares in all the rooms, as well as the Winter Mice who have come in from the cold.
