Poet John Clare's home renovated to celebrate rural Britain.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

"Tasteful illumination of the night, Bright scatter'd, twinkling star of spangled earth!"

This lyrical paean to glow-worms was typical of John Clare, the man known as the "Northamptonshire peasant poet" who captivated the 19th-century book-buying public with trail-blazing odes to ants, April daisies and other natural world minutiae in rural Britain. Now Clare, the Romantic naturalist whose genius showed in poetry that described light-rings "widening and quavering on the water with the plunge of a Pike", is being celebrated by a new educational centre opening on his birthday next week.

An 80-mile walk set off today to raise funds …