Milton's Cottage is a timber framed 16th century building located in the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Giles.
In 1665 John Milton and his wife, moved into the cottage to escape the Plague in London. Despite the fact that Milton spent less than a year at the cottage, it is important because of it being his only extant residence. While at the Grade 1 listed sixteenth-century cottage Milton completed his best known work, Paradise Lost; the seeds for Paradise Regained were also sown here. Milton's friend Thomas Ellwood called the cottage "that pretty box in St. Giles".
The ground floor of the cottage is now a museum dedicated to Milton and his works. The four museum rooms contain the most extensive collection in the world on open display of 17th Century first editions of John Milton's works, both poetry and prose. Tours vividly describe and explore the extraordinary career of this blind genius in his refuge from the plague, where he wrote some of the finest poetry. The thoughts of John Milton and the diverse nature of his published works are the evidence that demonstrates why he leaves such an enduring legacy.
The cottage's garden is also open to the public and is planted in a traditional style.
Royal Interest
Queen Victoria opened the subscription list for the purchase of the Cottage in 1887. The Cottage and garden have been honoured by visits from Her Majesty the Queen, Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; Her Late Royal Highness, the Princess Margaret Countess of Snowdon; and His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester on separate occasions. To celebrate the quatercentenary of Milton's birth in 2008, Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall also visited.
Famous quotes containing the words milton and/or cottage:
“Alas! What boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Hid in the tangles of Neaera’s hair?”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)