Scent from yolk-yellow azaleas lingers heavily in an enchanted hillside garden created by one of the country's leading English academics of his day.

The quiet, charming man who gave to the world standard editions of classic poets and took Dorothy Wordsworth's raw, unseen journals, publishing both them and her ground breaking biography, also produced an unlikely parody in paradise.

Not much has changed at Ladywood since Ernest de Selincourt paid £400 in 1904 for a plot of land in the heart of Wordsworth country.

More Edgbaston suburbia than rural Lakes, the professor reputedly got architectural students at Birmingham University to come up with the quirky design for a house of Edwardian eccentricity.

Still owned by the family, Ladywood is about to be thrown open for the weekend to commemorate Oxford's Professor of Poetry from 1928 to 1933, educator, scholar, and gentleman of Grasmere.

He unravelled mysteries and myths, saw sensational evidence of William Wordsworth's French mistress Annette Vallon, and pondered the strange, some say incestuous, relationship with his sister.

It is 60 years since Ernest de Selincourt caught double pneumonia while attending the Grasmere ironmonger's funeral and died a fortnight later.

His grandson Christopher and new wife Mandi are determined to put Ernest back in the public eye and to rekindle the high esteem in which he was held.

The professor had, after all, inadvertently brought Christopher and Mandi together.

Mandi Abrahams headed to the Lakes from Bangor University to research Harriet Martineau, the poet, social reformer, author and philosopher. During spells working at Ambleside's Armitt Museum and Library, she encountered the work of Ernest de Selincourt, and met Christopher who was actively involved in the centre.

She knew of Ernest through his work with the adult education movement, but there was something about the attractive academic of French aristocratic origins that attracted and compelled her.

Other females had also found the charismatic, learned man irresistible.

As chair of English Literature at Birmingham University, his tutorials were seized on by eager young undergraduates, many of them women.

"We heard one report of a massive crowd of women gathering in a Birmingham street. Onlookers thought there had been an accident. In fact they were waiting to get into one of Ernest's lectures," laughed Mandi.

Her own PhD studies have been shelved. Instead, she has become the lady of Ladywood, throwing herself into researching the family which ensnared her.

"I'm not sure which she loves most, the house or me," jokes Christopher, whose first wife Prudence died in the summer of 2001, after the couple had celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

Mandi and her four-year-old daughter revel in the place where poets wandered and took their inspiration. She and Christopher linger by the Wishing Gate, immortalised by Wordsworth. Above them is White Moss Tarn, a winter skating paradise, mentioned in Prelude. It was here Mary de Selincourt, Christopher's mother, developed her passion for ice, and encouraged her own children to learn to skate by pushing kitchen chairs in front of them.

Ladywood and Dove Cottage are linked by an old turnpike lane - known as Bit by Bit Reform - the main road in Wordsworth's day.

Ernest de Selincourt was a Trustee of Dove Cottage from 1907, its chairman from 1922 until his death in 1943, and was responsible for opening the museum at Town End.

His son Oliver continued as a Trustee until 1972 and daughter Mary, Lady Morris of Grasmere, was chairman when current Wordsworth Trust director Robert Woof was appointed.

Dove Cottage is actively involved in the Ernest de Selincourt commemoration weekend, hosting an exhibition of working manuscripts and a poetry reading evening.

Ernest de Selincourt first made his mark at Oxford, his mission to popularise English Literature. According to Mandi, he wanted to open up the subject to the world, "without dumbing it down".

In 1896 he became Lecturer in English Literature and the following year University Lecturer in Modern English Literature, the first appointments of their kind at Oxford.

He helped found The English Association and was said to be a great teacher. His criticism could be pungent, he rarely praised, but instilled respect for the language he loved.

Mandi explained how he got the leading writers of the day to speak to people and he had particular faith in women's abilities as students.

His acclaimed edition of the Poems of Keats, published in 1905, set new standards in the editing of modern poets.

Devotion to the Lakes, and Wordsworth, were established long before de Selincourt's 1906 edition of Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes. Despite the Great War years putting a severe strain on his health, he went to France to lecture the troops.

His edition of Prelude was first published during the General Strike in 1926 and was said to have "lifted the gloom of the nation".

Ernest was a member of a clan of brothers and nephews, well-known writers and journalists. Brother Basil was an essayist and critic; Hugh a cricket writer and literary editor for the Observer; nephew Aubrey, classicist and sailor, whose translation of the Histories of Herodotus is still standard text.

Held in great esteem throughout his life, and still highly regarded, Ernest produced the standard editions of classic poets including Wordsworth, Keats, Spenser and Whitman.

"He was very meticulous and used to go through the Wordsworth manuscripts, which were far from easy, as great acts of devotion," said Mandi.

"He gradually started to unravel the stories, like the French mistress. Wordsworth's grandson Gordon is supposed to have gone through journals and taken bits out about the very private matters. He wanted to maintain a certain image.

"After Gordon's death, Ernest started work on Dorothy's diaries. He gradually unpicked the real story. He never suggested William and Dorothy had an incestuous relationship, he simply presented the facts and left the question open for debate."

Mandi said the journals were intended only for the eyes of William. Ernest de Selincourt presented them to the world and gave Dorothy recognition in her own right.

Ladywood's new woman is hoping to produce a book on the de Selincourt family and is eager for information.

This weekend's commemoration may unveil some hidden treasure.

"We are in a privileged position to offer an insight into a man who was so loved and respected in his day, whose editions were standards for 50 years," said Mandi.

Ring conference office 015394-35479 for details of the May 17-18 weekend.

May 15, 2003 10:00