Literary

Places in Britain associated with a work of literature, or a well-known author, poet or other writer.

The dastardly shooting of Lorna

Exmoor, Lorna Doone

The Victorian novel, “Lorna Doone – a Romance of Exmoor”, is generally assumed to be a work of fiction, set in a stunning location on the borders of Devon and Somerset and against the turbulent historical backdrop of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.  Yet some believe that the author, R D Blackmore, drew upon illusive […]

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Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral, near Framwellgate Bridge

Durham’s story is a fascinating piece of the story of England.  It is partly a tale of saints and kings and moving bones, and it begins back in the 7th century. The founding of Durham Cathedral Actually, it was mostly Cuthbert’s fault – with some help from the Danes, a lost cow and perhaps a

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Tarr Steps

Tarr Steps, ancient clapper bridge in Somerset

The Devil was a busy little bee in days gone by.  Some might say he still is, but in any event he crops up all over the British landscape – including at the Tarr Steps, a famous clapper bridge over the river Barle, Somerset, in the Exmoor National Park.  Clapper bridges, river crossings of dry-stone

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London’s forgotten cathedral

Southwark Cathedral - soaring nave arches

Head west out of London Bridge Station.  If you’re very careful, you will discover London’s third Anglican cathedral, Southwark; it’s easily missed.  Hemmed in between the colourful and vibrant Borough Market and the occasionally vulgar Montagu Close, and often hidden by dark Victorian railway arches over which trains ceaselessly rattle and clunk in and out

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The George Inn at Borough

I wonder how many pints of ale have been supped here?  Let me see: if just twenty people drank a modest 4 pints every night, that would be, er, 29,200 pints a year – 2,920,000 for every century.  But the revenue generated by that amount of beer would not be enough to make the place

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Kipling’s House

Bateman's, Rudyard Kipling's House in Sussex, England

We travelled to Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s Sussex home for 34 years, through the impossibly pretty village of Burwash, all whitewash and weatherboard.  You reach the house down what Kipling described as “an enlarged rabbit-hole of a lane” to arrive in what is now a car park.  I wondered how it had all looked when the

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