When Cowper’s house was built is not on record. Curiously enough nothing is known of it prior to the arrival in it, in September 1767, of Cowper and his friend Mrs Unwin. The earliest preserved deed is a marriage settlement, made in 1769, when the property was conveyed to trustees for the use of the Rev George Smith of Market Street, who had married Mary, daughter of Robert Carey, a malster of Olney. In 1815 the house was sold by Mrs Smith to Mr Robert Andrews. In 1830 the Andrews family sold it to Mr James Hale Talbot. In 1854 it was sold by auction at the Bull Hotel - the purchaser being Mr WH Collingridge, who in 1900, presented it “To the town and nation”.

The Museum, a large brick building with stone dressings, consists of two tenements. Cowper and Mrs Unwin resided in the western one, and Dick Coleman (Cowper’s protégé) and his wife in the eastern one - hence the latter is sometimes called “Dick Coleman’ house”.
Newton
by W S Wright
On entering the Museum, the visitor finds himself in Cowper’s Hall, and notices right in front of him in the port-hole through which Cowper’s hares Puss, Tiney and Bess used to lap to their gambols on the Turkey carpet. Cowper’s Hall is referred to many times in his letters. In order that the hares should not escape he usually kept the front door locked, so visitors had to enter at the back.














The principal objects of interest in Cowper’s Hall are the following:-

1. Cowper’s Counterpane presented to him by Mr King of Pertenhall
2. Mrs Unwin’s Bobbin Winder
3. Oil Paintings of Olney Church and Great House and the Dog Fop by Jas Andrews
4. Oil Painting of Thomas Bull (Cowper’s “Young Hebræean).
5. Oil Paintings of the Alcove, the Old Bridge, Cowper and his Mother’s pictures, Judith Cowper, and the Rev William Bull, by WS Wright.
6. The Rev William Bull’s Chair
7. Cowper and his Hares from the painting by Walter West
8. Three carved Figures from the Rood Screen of Olney Church
9. Many Portraits of Cowper’s friends, etc.
10. Candle-stool with old Flasks and Hutches

On the left of the Hall, is the famous Parlour the scene of so many events recorded in Cowper’s letters - the most amusing of which is called “The Kissing Candidate Letter”. Here Cowper read to the ladies - Mrs Unwin, Lady Hesketh and Lady Austen; played battledore with them when it was too wet to go out; amused himself with his hares; and wrote The Task and many other of his poems. The original wainscoting surrounds the room, and at the windows may be seen open the very shutters referred to in that oft quoted passage:
Newton's Chair and Bible
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the babbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.



It was from one of these windows that Cowper first saw Lady Austen who was entering the draper’s shop opposite, now carried on by the enterprising Mr Joseph Garner, and the fact will be recalled that it was at her suggestion that he wrote The Task.


The principal objects of interest in the Parlour are:

1. The original of Cowper’s poem Yardley Oak, which consists of eleven pages in Cowper’s handwriting.
2. Several original Letters of Cowper.
3. The original of Cowper’s lines To Mary.
4. The Document authorising the payment of a pension of £300 to Cowper, signed by Geo III, and Pitt.
5. Cowper’s Mirror, Coffee-pot, Walking-stick, Stock-buckle, & Watch.
6. Oil Paintings of Cowper, Newton, and the Temple by WS Wright.
7. Facetious Oil Painting, Cowper looking at an egg, which he holds in his hand, and boiling his watch.
8. The original Teedon’s Diary, with numerous references to Cowper. Teedon, the schoolmaster lived in a thatched house that stood on the site of the shop now occupied by Mr Hoddle, bootmaker, High Street South.
9. Newton’s chair and Bible.
10. The shutter with the pencil lines written by Cowper, from the Lodge, Weston Underwood, presented by Lieut-Col Bowyer.
11. The Cowper Centenary Medal, struck at the expense of a few of the inhabitants of Olney, as a lasting record of the gift of the house and a tribute to the children for the part they took in the Cowper Centenary celebrations.
12. Many curious copies of “John Gilpin”, by various publishers.
13. Letters of Cowper, Lady Hesketh, William Wilberforce, John Thornton, Rev John Berridge, Rev Henry Gauntlett, Dr Gauntlett, and Charles Longuet Higgins.
14. First editions of Cowper’s Poem and Olney Hymns, and many things of interest.

The Cowper Medal

The visitor will next notice the stair-foot door referred to humorously by Cowper in his letter to Unwin of 3 Jan 1784. The large room on the first floor, Cowper’s bedroom, is generally called the John Gilpin Room because it was here he wrote that poem. The lines on the “Loss of the Royal George” were also written here.

Mrs Unwin’s room is the smaller of the two front rooms on the first floor.

Another room on the first floor is devoted to the William Wright Library which was recently presented to the Museum by Mr Wm Wright of Moseley.

The garden is arranged very much as it was in Cowper’s day. At the end may be seen Cowper’s Pew which was removed from Olney Church in 1904.
Writing on the Shutter


Accompanying photographs added by Oliver Ratcliff
Gayhurst Lodge

Gayhurst Cottages

Gayhurst House

Gayhurst Church and House

Visit the next page - Olney Parish Church
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