In 19th-century England, two combined processes – industrialisation and urbanisation on the one hand, and the rediscovery of natural landscapes on the other – paved the way to a new conception of the environment, mainly formalised by the poet William Wordsworth. Aesthetic, spiritual and patriotic outlooks were interwoven in this sentimental conception. The latter was at the basis of the environmental movement, which gained strength from the 1870s onwards. The creation of the National Trust in 1894 can be considered as the most significant achievement of this Wordsworthian vision of environment.