Keats’ House, Teignmouth

Teignmouth is an attractive town with sandy beaches, surrounded by the Devon countryside. John Keats, part of the second generation of Romantic poets, stayed here for two months in 1818 whilst he was looking after his younger brother, Tom, who was sick with consumption. The brothers stayed with the Jeffery family in a house in Northumberland Place and today, you can find the house- ‘Keats’ House’- bearing a plaque claiming he stayed there.

However, the houses in the area have been renumbered since then. From Keats’ letters it would seem that he stayed at a corner property with a view of the river, recently built on land reclaimed from a marsh. It has been suggested that the real place he stayed was, in fact, 35 Northumberland Place, at the corner of Queen Street. I am no expert in this matter and can’t claim to have read all his letters and spent hours researching the issue as some have!

Whilst staying here, Keats continued to write poetry including a piece about Teignmouth which he enclosed in a letter to his friend, Benjamin Robert Haydon. This begins:

Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear Teign head--
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.

Keats himself was diagnosed with TB (consumption) and died on the 23rd February 1821.