THE organisers of a Cockermouth exhibition to celebrate Dorothy Wordsworth were delighted to welcome some of her relatives.

‘I Am Dorothy’ has been staged in the Kirkgate Centre.

It was organised by Kirkgate Arts and Heritage as part of the 250th anniversary celebrations of the town's most famous daughter.

A special viewing was held for representatives of local organisations and attended by two members of the Wordsworth family.

Susan Wordsworth Andrew is the great, great, great grand-daughter of William and great, great, great, great niece of Dorothy. She visited the exhibition with her son, Simon Bennie.

They enjoyed looking round the exhibition and met the curator, Gloria Edwards, and Marion Bowman, chair of Kirkgate Arts and Heritage.

The Wordsworth family, including Susan and Simon, own Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, where Dorothy lived with William and his family until her death at the age of 83.

She was born on Christmas Day 1771 at what is now Wordsworth House, on Main Street, Cockermouth.

The Kirkgate exhibition has now closed but will be touring village halls during autumn and winter.

Marion said: "It was very special to have some of the current generations of the Wordsworth family with us at the Kirkgate to celebrate our exhibition.

"The partnership we have with Rydal Mount and the family meant we have been able to use two wonderful images of Dorothy that they own - of her as a young woman then, in later life, with her little dog, sitting in Rydal Mount."

Poet Amy Heys, of the women’s poetry collective Eden Poets, has been involved with I Am Dorothy. In Dorothy's journals, she found this reference to a Cockermouth woman who was travelling through the Lakes selling goods in local market towns: “She is very healthy, has travelled over the mountains these 30 years. She does not mind the storms if she can keep her goods dry. Her husband will not travel with an ass, because it is the tramper’s badge - she would have one to relieve her from the weary load.”

Kirkgate Arts and Heritage are challenging people to Make The Journey, from Wordsworth House in Cockermouth to Rydal Mount, to engage more with nature as Dorothy did, and write their own poems and diary entries about the trip.