MANUSCRIPTS and material by William Wordsworth and his Romantic contemporaries will soon be re-housed as the state-of-the-art Jerwood Centre comes to completion, reports Lisa Frascarelli.

The £3.15million Wordsworth Trust project will see its own collection of manuscripts, book and fine art which includes 90 per cent of Wordsworth's surviving working manuscripts stored in the new centre which is due to formally open in Spring 2005.

The trust said that although the building would not be open to the public it would give better access to the collections for researchers and allow them to prepare items for loan and bring in major new exhibitions.

Dr Woof, who was handed the keys for the new three-storey building at an informal ceremony on Tuesday, said: "The building will ensure that this collection, which has been designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council as nationally important, is given the best possible care in the heart of the environment which provided so much inspiration to Wordsworth and to so many other writers and artists."

Jeff Cowton, curator at the Trust, explained that, during the following few months, the centre would be prepared for the precious works.

"We are monitoring the environmental conditions inside the building very carefully to bring the temperature and humidity well within the correct levels before we can move a single book or letter," he said.

"Once the building has dried out enough, we will start the process of moving everything one by one to its new home."

Funding for the Jerwood Centre has been provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Northwest Development Agency, The Jerwood Foundation and The European Regional Development Fund.

The top floor of the new centre will house a reading room and contemporary poetry, the ground floor will be a cataloguing and work room and the basement will be home to the remainder of the Trust's collection of 50,000 letters, books, manuscripts, paintings and drawings.

A rotunda, which has been built next to the new development, will provide information on Dove Cottage, Wordsworth and the Romantics.