Richard Jefferies Museum
About
The Richard Jefferies Museum occupies the farmhouse at Coate, on the south-eastern edge of Swindon, where Richard Jefferies — one of Victorian England's most visionary nature writers — was born on 6 November 1848 and spent his formative years. Jefferies grew up at Coate Farm and the surrounding countryside provided the landscape for his richly observed accounts of rural life, natural history, and the mystical relationship between the human spirit and the natural world. The farm and its setting, now embedded within the green spaces of Coate Water Country Park, remain remarkably evocative of the rural Wiltshire that shaped Jefferies' imagination.
Jefferies produced an extraordinary body of work in a writing career cut tragically short by tuberculosis — he died in 1887 aged only thirty-eight. His output ranges from closely observed natural history journalism (Wildlife in a Southern County, 1879; The Amateur Poacher, 1879; The Gamekeeper at Home, 1878) through semi-autobiographical fiction (Bevis: The Story of a Boy, 1882, which has been described as the greatest children's nature adventure in English literature) to his visionary masterpiece The Story of My Heart (1883), an extended meditation on nature, spirituality, and a pantheistic sense of the infinite that anticipates twentieth-century ecological thought by generations. His dystopian novel After London: or Wild England (1885) imagines Britain reverting to wilderness after a catastrophic civilisational collapse — a work of striking originality that has found new resonance in the age of environmental anxiety.
The museum also celebrates Alfred Williams (1877–1930), another remarkable writer associated with the same Swindon landscape. Known as 'the Hammerman Poet', Williams worked for twenty-three years at the Great Western Railway works in Swindon while secretly educating himself in Greek and Latin and producing volumes of poetry and prose. His Life in a Railway Factory (1915), a searing account of industrial labour conditions, stands as one of the most powerful pieces of working-class writing in the English language.
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Plan Your Visit
💡 Visitor Tips
- Read a chapter of Bevis or The Story of My Heart before visiting — arriving with Jefferies' prose fresh in mind transforms the experience of standing in his actual birthplace.
- The museum is within Coate Water Country Park, so combine the visit with a walk around the lake that Jefferies described so memorably in Bevis.
- Opening hours are very limited (Wed pm, Sat am, Sun pm, Easter to October) — check the website and telephone ahead to confirm before travelling.
- Swindon town is 4 miles away and easily combined in a day visit — STEAM Museum (GWR railway museum) and Swindon Museum and Art Gallery are both worth the detour.
- The museum is not wheelchair accessible due to the historic farmhouse structure; contact in advance if you have mobility requirements.
- Liddington Hill, 6 miles south-east, is the down that Jefferies climbed repeatedly and described in The Story of My Heart — a 2-mile walk from the car park at the base.
- There are no café facilities on site; the country park has a café near the main car park open during summer months.
- Guided tours with a Jefferies scholar can be arranged by contacting the museum — especially recommended for literary groups.
Highlights
The Birthplace Room — Coate Farm
Visitors can stand in the farmhouse rooms where Richard Jefferies was born in 1848 and spent his childhood.
The building retains much of its Victorian character: low ceilings, small windows looking out over the fields and the willow-fringed Coate Water, and the atmospheric quality of a working farmstead.
Jefferies wrote vividly about every inch of this landscape — the hedgerows, the meadows, the lake, the sky — and visiting the farmhouse with his books in hand is one of the most evocative literary pilgrimage experiences in Wiltshire.
Richard Jefferies — Life and Works
A comprehensive display covers the arc of Jefferies' literary career, from his early journalism for local Wiltshire newspapers through his natural history masterworks to his extraordinary late visionary writings. First editions, manuscripts, correspondence, and personal effects illustrate the life of a writer who produced a vast body of work despite chronic ill health — tuberculosis progressively debilitated him through his thirties — and who died aged only thirty-eight in 1887.
Portraits, press cuttings, and family documents bring Jefferies' brief, intense life into sharp focus.
Bevis and the Children's Literature Legacy
Jefferies' Bevis: The Story of a Boy (1882) is one of the most celebrated nature adventure stories in the English language. Set on and around Coate Water — here transformed into a sea for the boys' explorations — the novel follows Bevis and his friend Mark as they build a raft, navigate their 'New Sea,' and immerse themselves in the natural world with passionate intensity.
The museum explores the novel's enduring influence, including its acknowledged debt from Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (1930) and its place in the tradition of children's outdoor adventure literature.
The Story of My Heart — Nature Mysticism
The Story of My Heart (1883) is Jefferies' most personal and ambitious work — a sustained meditation on his experience of nature, the inadequacy of conventional religion, and a pantheistic sense of the infinite. Written in the first person over many years, it describes lying in the grass on the Wiltshire downs and feeling a physical communion with the sun, the earth, and the sea that transcends ordinary consciousness.
The museum presents the work in its historical context and explores how it anticipates the ecological and spiritual thought of the twentieth century.
Collections
The Richard Jefferies Museum holds collections of manuscripts, correspondence, first editions, personal effects, and archival material relating to Richard Jefferies (1848–1887) and Alfred Williams (1877–1930). The Jefferies collection includes working manuscripts for several major works, extensive correspondence with editors and literary figures, and personal items including clothing, spectacles, and domestic objects from the farmhouse.
First and early editions of all Jefferies' major published works are held, alongside a library of critical and biographical studies.
The Alfred Williams collection includes manuscripts, published volumes, personal correspondence, and material relating to his working life at the GWR works in Swindon. The museum also holds a collection of photographs, watercolours, and prints depicting the Wiltshire landscape central to both writers' work.
Richard Jefferies — Nature, Vision, Legacy
The main permanent display tracing Jefferies' life, works, and lasting influence, set within the farmhouse where he was born.
Alfred Williams — The Hammerman Poet
Dedicated display on the life and work of Alfred Williams, Jefferies' near-contemporary and fellow Swindon writer.
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.