The fight to save William Blake's forgotten former home

The Trust hopes to create a public arts and education centre for the enjoyment of all and to establish Felpham as a place of pilgrimage for Blake devotees – not unlike Wordsworth's Dove Cottage in the Lake District or the artist Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage in Kent.

Blake wrote the poem Jerusalem (which was set to music as a hymn by Sir Hubert Parry a century later) while living with his wife Catherine in the 17th century thatched brick and flint house. Blake lived there between 1800 and 1803; it was here that he also wrote his epic poem Milton, and painted his vision of Jacob's Ladder. The couple used the cottage as a haven where Blake could indulge his fertile imagination while they lived a life that was remarkably colourful and unusual for their time.

“To lovely Felpham, for there is heaven,” wrote Blake of his own piece of “green and pleasant” land; “the bread of sweet thoughts and the wine of delight / Feed the village of Felpham by day and by night.”

According to legend, the unorthodox poet, who radically imagined freedom from the shackles of the Industrial Revolution and human existence before the Fall, was discovered naked with Catherine sunbathing in the cottage's pretty garden. “Come in! It's only Adam and Eve, you know,” Blake is said to have said to a visitor.

Bruce Dickinson has a personal artistic interest in preserving Blake's legacy and celebrating the “genius loci,” the spirit of place. His own lyrics draw heavily on the writings of William Blake (particularly on his 1998 solo album Chemical Wedding), often playfully turning Blake's images on their head. The music video for his latest solo single, Rain on the gravesbegins with a quote from Blake: “A truth told in ill intent / Beats all the lies that can be invented” – and ends with the dramatic unveiling of a replica of Blake’s tomb.