In July 1797, Dorothy and William Wordsworth leased Alfoxton House, a fine, three storey mansion on the edge of the Quantocks found for them by Tom Poole. It was here that Dorothy began her journals (published posthumouslu as Alfoxton Journals, 1798), in which she wrote of the House: “Here we are in a large mansion, in a large park with seventy head of deer around us There is furniture enough for a dozen families like ours. There is an excellent garden, well stocked with vegetables and fruit. The front of the house is to the south, but it is screened from the sun by a high hill From the end of the house we have a view of the sea.” From here the Wordsworths, along with Coleridge, went on many walks exploring the stream courses in the surrounding hills.
While living at Alfoxton, Wordsworth wrote the poems: 'Old Man Travelling'; 'A Night Piece'; 'The Thorn'; 'The Idiot Boy' and 'We are Seven'. The Quantock Hills, rising above Alfoxton, gave rise to much of the poetry in The Lyrical Ballads. The power of the landscape is recorded in Book 14 of The Prelude (1850):
When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view Than any liveliest sight of yesterday, That summer under whose indulgent skies, Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan coombs, Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart, Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man, The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes. Didst utter of the Lady Christabel.
The Wordsworths left Alfoxton in June 1798. Over 100 years later, in 1912, Virginia and Leonard Woolf visited Holford on their honeymoon. From here Virginia sent a picture postcard of Alfoxton House with the message: 'P.S. Who lived at Alfoxton?'