Grand entrance awaits visitors to poet's home

12:19pm Thursday 4th October 2001

After months of renovations, poet John Milton's home reopens to the public. Reporter VICTORIA BIRCH speaks to the curator of the 16th century cottage and finds out whether the work on the house has recreated its original feel

POET and parliamentarian John Milton's picturesque country cottage in Chalfont St Giles has just had a £40,000 National Lottery Grant to renovate the Grade One listed building and refurbish the scullery.

A new entrance hall and a souvenir shop has now been built, which uncovered a 50-year-old wash furnace in the process.

It means visitors do not need to wade through the garden in all weathers to enter the house.

Edward Dawson, who has been the curator of the cottage, in Dean Way, for eight years, said he was delighted with their new front entrance.

He said: "We used to have to bring people in the pouring rain with umbrellas through the garden, soaking wet with their wellies on, but now they can come in through the front door. We are delighted with it all."

However, he enjoyed taking visitors on a tour through the garden, as it is a special part of the cottage and was tended to by Milton, who was a keen botanist.

When Milton first came to St Giles in 1665 with his third wife Elizabeth Minshull and his daughter Deborah to escape the plague, it was just surrounded by Chiltern countryside but he developed the garden to include fragrant herbs and beautiful blooms.

Mr Dawson said that he believes the ghost of Milton is present in the garden.

"Everything comes to rest at the end of the day but I can almost imagine the blind John Milton coming in from the garden with his daughter."

Milton went blind at the age of 44.

Mr Dawson added: "The garden has been kept up because he was a horticulturist and it is the only cottage garden listed by English Heritage in the whole of the Chilterns. We have to keep the garden up."

Inside the house there is a book called the Flowers of Milton by Jane Elizabeth Giraud and contains delicate, hand-coloured plates of the flowers and plants referred to by Milton in his verse.

The museum originally opened to the public as a reading room in 1887 when public libraries did not exist and The Cottage Library now ranks as one of the most important sources for Milton researchers.

Apart from a first edition collection of 17th century original works are rare items on display including a chair owned by Milton and a lock of his hair.

Mr Dawson said there is a lot of local pride about the cottage and they still manage to get thousands of visitors a year – although he would like more.

"The cottage was open for public use in 1887, seven years before the National Trust itself was founded. It was a local enterprise from the outset. I have come across great local pride as an individual and we have had huge help from Chiltern District Council and we have had two lottery funds.

"There are only 200 Grade One listed cottages in the UK, and this is one. Shakespeare's cottage is to Warwickshire what Milton is to Bucks."

He added: "Milton was a pioneering educationalist and it is so sad there are so many visitors from the private sector and he would be so disappointed if he knew. We have about 6,000 a year and about 50 per cent come from overseas.

"He had 20 years in politics and people just think he is the author of Paradise Lost. He was way ahead of his time."

It has been said that the appearance of the cottage could not have differed much from when it was in Milton's time.

The original building is still an L-shape, but over the garden door there was a two-storied porch. It was half-timbered and half-gabled but it was pulled down for safety reasons between 1825 and 1830.

The decision that the cottage should be dedicated to the memory of John Milton was made in 1887.

It is thought that this happened when an American attempted to buy the building and take it back home with him.

But a Jubilee Fund was set up locally and Queen Victoria headed the subscription list with a donation of £20. The cottage was then bought and put into the care of a management committee.

The cottage is closed in January, February, November and December.

If you would like further information about Milton's cottage contact 01494 872313