THOMAS CROMWELL’S LONDON – 14 February 2015
Many of the London locations featured in Hilary Mantel’s novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies can still be identified – find out more on the Londonist website. In addition, a well illustrated piece focusing on Sutton House in East London, home to Rafe Sadler, is available on That’s how the light gets in.
DYLAN THOMAS – 9 November 2013
A recent article in the Telegraph provides information for Thomas fans looking to discover more about his life in Wales in advance of next year’s celebrations around the centenary of his birth. The Dylan Thomas 100 website will be posting more on this topic over the coming months.
CHARLES CAUSLEY TRUST NEWS – 29 June 2013
The Charles Causley Trust has been awarded two grants recently which will allow for repairs to be carried out on his former home in Launceston. The house is being turned into a writers’ retreat and some of the funding will be used to support a writer in residency programme. Read more on the Charles Causley Trust’s own website.
LADY CHATTERLY’S HOUSE – 21 June 2013
Literary locations with links to D H Lawrence, Seamus Heaney, Jane Austen, Roald Dahl, George Meredith, Mary Shelley and Daphne Du Maurier all get a mention in yesterday’s article from the Daily Telegraph property section.
THRUSHCROSS GRANGE – 21 June 2013
A house which Emily Bronte may have used as a model for the home of Edgar Linton in Wuthering Heights is up for sale. Some scholars are of the opinion that it was an inspiration for the Heights itself, although at least two alternative locations for that farm have been put forward at various times. The area also has a non-Bronte literary connection: parts of the film of The Railway Children were shot on the nearby Keighley and Worth Valley steam railway.
LOCATING BATHSHEBA EVERDENE – 5 June 2013
An article in today’s Daily Telegraph about Bloxham Manor, Dorset, identifies it as the house used as Weatherbury Farm in the 1967 film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. The piece also includes a snippet of information that was new to me, which is that the house Hardy actually had in mind when writing the book was Waterston Manor, about nine miles from Bloxworth. There are more pictures of Waterston Manor on the Geograph website.
ELIZABETH GASKELL’S HOUSE TO OPEN NEXT YEAR – 13 February 2013
The Manchester home of the Victorian writer Elizabeth Gaskell which has been empty for several years is being restored. If all goes according to plan the house, an 1830s villa close to the centre of Manchester and Gaskell’s home during the writing of Cranford, will be opening to the public in the summer of 2014.
JAMES BOND FILM LOCATIONS AROUND BRITAIN – 11 February 2013
A gallery of eighteen pictures on the Telegraph website. As the captions make clear the locations have been associated with a number other films besides the Bond series.
LONDON IN FICTION – 3 August 2012
An article on the AbeBooks blog, ‘A Literary Tour of London’, includes some useful comments below the line, among which I found a mention of the excellent London Fictions website which I hadn’t come across until now. I’ve also added a link on the Literary Places homepage and shall be returning for a longer look.
WILLIAM MORRIS GALLERY, WALTHAMSTOW – 21 July 2012
The William Morris Gallery at the former Water House, Walthamstow, re-opens to the public on 2 August 2012. Water House was Morris’s family home between 1848 and 1856 and is a substantial Grade II* listed Georgian building dating from around 1750. This major redevelopment is costing £5 million and will make it possible for more of the outstanding collection of textiles, wallpapers, ceramics, glass, furniture, stained glass, books and fine art to be on display. The museum would welcome further donations of any size in support of the project and these can be made via PayPal at the Friends of the William Morris Gallery website.
APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD LETTERS GO ON SALE AT CHRISTIE’S – 19 July 2012
Twenty-seven letters from the youngest member of Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic team are being offered for sale by Christie’s on 9 October. The letters, which had been in the hands of a family member, were sent by Apsley Cherry-Garrard to his mother and cover the whole span of the expedition, from its departure in June 1910 to the return of the survivors to New Zealand in February 1913.
‘WRITING BRITAIN’ AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY – 10 May 2012
A new exhibition at the British Library – ‘Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands’ – will be running from 11 May – 25 September 2012. The oldest manuscript in the exhibition will be the 10th Century Exeter Book with the poem ‘The Seafarer’, on loan from the Exeter Cathedral Library (see the Literary Places homepage for some background on this). If you can’t attend you can still take part by helping to create an online literary map of the ‘British and Irish Isles’, with literary works relating to specific places. The BBC website has a good audio slideshow which suggests the project will be of interest to anybody who enjoys linking literature with landscapes.
COLERIDGE MEMORIAL IN OTTERY ST MARY – 21 March 2012
To commemorate Ottery St Mary’s native son, the Coleridge Memorial Project is having ‘Kubla Khan’ engraved onto a series of granite blocks, to be installed alongside a new path to the Kings School. At nearly 70m long this seems like a splendidly imaginative way to commemorate the poet, particularly as Coleridge’s father was at one time headmaster of King’s, and Coleridge himself briefly attended the school.
RONALD DUNCAN’S POETRY ON REISSUED CD – 11 March 2012
A BBC Radiophonic Workshop album by David Cain, ‘The Seasons’, has been reissued by Trunk Records. The original album was made in 1969 for the BBC Schools Radio Series and has since become a collector’s item. Unfortunately the voice on the CD is not Duncan’s – the poems are read by a broadcaster, Derek Bowskill, in a classic BBC manner rather at odds with the content – and David Cain, the composer, had no contact with him. In many ways it’s a surprising choice for a reissue, but perhaps it will bring Duncan’s work more of the attention it deserves.The booklet which comes with the CD contains the texts of sixteen short poems, only two of which were included in Duncan’s ‘Collected’, as well as background material, an interview with David Cain, and two reproductions of paintings created as extras for the original album.
NEW BLUE PLAQUES – 7 March 2012
Two new blue plaques have been placed on the London homes of Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bowen.
PLYMOUTH HISTORY OF CAPTAIN ROBERT FALCON SCOTT – 19 January 2012
JOHN FOWLES’ HOUSE : A PHOTO GALLERY – 1 January 2012
Just found these photos of Belmont House in Lyme Regis taken in 2010 (along with a few older ones) on an excellent website called ‘Past Remains’. Most of the places covered are in East Devon and West Dorset and the site looks well worth exploring.
BRONTË CHURCH AND COUNTRYSIDE UNDER THREAT – 1 January 2012
CHARLES DICKENS WALKS – 21 December 2011
‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ RESTORED – 16 December 2011
CAPTAIN SCOTT’S ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION DIARIES – 06 December 2011
ROYAL ALBERT MEMORIAL MUSEUM REOPENING IN EXETER – 05 December 2011
WORDSWORTH AT ALLAN BANK – 05 December 2011
KEATS’ HAMPSTEAD HOUSE TO LET – 23 October 2011
NEWSTEAD ABBEY OPENING HOURS REDUCED – 09 October 2011
ROALD DAHL’S WRITING SHED – 13 September 2011
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE’S COTTAGE – 09 September 2011
FLICKR LITERARY BRITAIN AND IRELAND GROUP – 11 February 2011
WRITERS’ HOUSES – 27 November 2010
JOHN FOWLES’ HOUSE – LYME REGIS – 14 November 2010
T. S. ELIOT’S IDENTICAL TWIN DAUGHTERS – 14 November 2010
TRACKING DOWN LITERARY SOCIETIES – 12 November 2010