Elizabeth Goudge, writer

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born in Wells on 24th April 1900.  She was the only child of Reverend Henry Goudge and his wife Ida de Beauchamp Collenette, who came from Guernsey.  Henry Goudge was Vice Principal of Wells Theological College and they lived in Tower House (also known as The Rib) in St Andrew Street. Elizabeth was taught at home by a governess.

In 1911 Henry Goudge accepted the job of Principal at Ely Theological College and the family moved to Ely.  Elizabeth boarded at Grassendale School in Southbourne, Bournemouth and later studied at the art school at University College Reading.  

In 1923 Henry Goudge was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and the family moved to Oxford.  Henry bought a bungalow in Barton-on-Sea in Hampshire, as his wife was unwell and unhappy in Oxford and Mrs Goudge spent the summers there.  Elizabeth worked as a handicraft teacher in Oxford, but she began writing plays, poems and later novels in her spare time. 

Elizabeth's first novel to be published was Island Magic, which was inspired by her childhood holidays with her grandparents in Guernsey.  It was published by Duckworth in 1934.  In 1936 A City of Bells, which was set in Wells, was published.  Towers in the Mist, which was published in 1938, was set in Oxford.

Henry Goudge died suddenly at Barton-on-Sea in 1939 and Elizabeth and her mother moved to a bungalow in Marldon, Devon, where they lived for the next 12 years.  In 1944 Green Dolphin Country was published.  This novel was made into a film called Green Dolphin Street in 1947.   In 1946, Elizabeth Goudge's most famous children's novel, The Little White Horse was published.  It won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1947.

After her mother's death in 1951, Elizabeth moved to Rose Cottage, Dog Lane, Peppard Common near Henley-on-Thames.  She continued to write novels for adults and children.  Her final novel, Child from the Sea was published in 1970.  Her autobiography, Joy of the Snow, was published in 1974.  Elizabeth Goudge never married and she lived in Rose Cottage with her female companion Jessie Munroe until her death on 1st April 1984. 

A blue plaque on Rose Cottage was unveiled in 2008.  There is also a blue plaque on Tower House/The Rib in Wells. 

Blue plaque on The Rib, St Andrew Street, Wells

The Rib

Rose Cottage, Peppard Common

Poets' Walk, Clevedon

The town of Clevedon has connections to two of England’s best known poets. Poets’ Walk is a popular footpath which runs along the coast and around Wain’s Hill and Church Hill at the southern end of Clevedon.  The walk is said to have inspired poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited the town.  The formal path which exists today was constructed in 1929. Poets’ Walk was designated as a Local Nature Reserve in 1993.

Poets' Walk signpost

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

The Sugar Lookout is a feature on Poets’ Walk. It was built by Ferdinand Beeston in around 1835.  It is said to have been used in the mid-19^th century by a family of sugar importers called Finzel to look out for ships sailing up the Bristol Channel, which were carrying sugar from the West Indies.  It later fell into ruin but has recently been restored.

Sugar Lookout overlooking the Bristol Channel

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah spent the first few months of their married life in a cottage on Old Church Road in Clevedon in 1795.

Coleridge Cottage, Old Church Road, Clevedon

In the mid-18^th century the author William Makepeace Thackeray was a frequent visitor of the Elton Family, who lived at Clevedon Court.  He is best known as a novelist but he did also write some poetry.

Alfred Tennyson had a close friend at Cambridge University called Arthur Hallam.  Arthur’s mother was a member of the Elton family of Clevedon Court.  Arthur, who was a poet and essayist, was engaged to marry Tennyson’s sister Emily but he died suddenly in Vienna in 1833 at the age of 22.  His body was brought back to England and he was buried in the family vault at St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon.  In 1850 Tennyson wrote a poem called In Memorium in tribute to his friend.  In the same year he made his first visit to Clevedon.  The house on Old Church Road in Clevedon, where he is said to have stayed, is called Tennyson House.   A nearby road is called Tennyson Avenue.

Tennyson House, Old Church Road

Tennyson Avenue, Clevedon

St Andrew's Church, Clevedon

Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey

Thomas Poole was born in Nether Stowey on 14th November 1766.  His father Thomas was a tanner and farmer.  He wanted his son to carry on his tanning business when he died, so he denied him a proper education and sent him to work as an apprentice in the tanyard from an early age.  Thomas junior educated himself and taught himself Latin and French.  In 1791 he represented the west country at a tanners meeting in London and was elected by them to speak to William Pitt about the distressed state of the tanning industry.  He returned from London as a supporter of the French Revolution. 

In 1793 Poole established the Nether Stowey Book Society. The members of the group met at The Globe Inn and bought books and exchanged books.

Thomas Poole was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge for the first time in August 1794 by his relative Henry Poole of Stogursey, who brought him to Thomas's house in Castle Street.  Coleridge was on a walking tour of Somerset with the poet Robert Southey.  Thomas and Coleridge became great friends.

In 1795 there was hardship in Nether Stowey when the price of wheat increased rapidly due to the war with France.  Poole, his mother and aunt created new recipes for cheaper loaves of bread e.g. using a mixture of wheat, barley, beans and potatoes or turnips.  In 1796 Poole built a new barkhouse in Tanyard Lane.

Coleridge asked Poole to find him a house in Nether Stowey and on 1st January 1797 he moved into a house on Lime Street in Nether Stowey with his wife Sara and their baby son Hartley. In July 1797 Poole arranged for William and Dorothy Wordsworth to rent Alfoxton House on the edge of Holford.   Also in 1797 Poole met the Staffordshire potters Josiah and Tom Wedgwood and he and Josiah became lifelong friends.  Through his friendship with Coleridge and Wordsworth, Poole met several other influential people of his day: the essayist and poet Charles Lamb; the radical speaker, writer, poet, painter and political reformer John Thelwell; the essayist, critic and philosopher William Hazlitt.

Poole met the scientist and inventor of the miners' safety lamp, Humphry Davy in 1799 and Davy later became a regular visitor to Nether Stowey.

Poole went on a tour of Europe in 1802.  In Paris he met the revolutionary and writer Thomas Paine (author of The Rights of Man) and was also presented to Napoleon Bonaparte. In the same year he met the civil servant John Rickman in London and in 1804 he compiled statistics for Rickman that were to be used to implement the poor laws.

In 1806 Poole founded the Nether Stowey Female Friendly Society.  Members paid what they could afford and in return they received financial support when they were sick, gave birth, were widowed or in their old age. Poole met the essayist Thomas de Quincey in 1807.

In 1807 Thomas tried unsuccessfully to reopen the Dodington copper mine, which had closed down in 1891.  He tried again in 1816 and built two new engine houses but the mine closed for the last time in 1821.

Poole donated a piece of land and paid for the building of a village school in Nether Stowey in 1812-13.  The school was large enough to educate up to 200 local children.  It was used as a school until 1979 when a new one was built and the building now houses the public library.

From 1814 until his death, Poole was a justice of the peace for Somerset.  

To encourage local people to save money and give them access to banking services, Thomas founded the Quantock Savings Bank in Lime Street, Nether Stowey in 1817.  The bank was in business until 1884.

Thomas Poole never married.  He lived in a house now called Poole House in Castle Street, Nether Stowey until 1802 when he gave the house to Thomas Ward, who was his partner in the tanning business.  Poole bought another house in St Mary Street, now called The Old House.  He lived there until his death.  He amassed a large library of books. Many people in the Nether Stowey area were suspicious of his radical views.  Although he was a great philanthropist and had many friends, he had a short temper and could sometimes be abrupt and overbearing.

Thomas Poole died of pleurisy in Nether Stowey on 8th September 1837 aged 72.  He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church in the village.

Portrait of Thomas Poole in the Museum of Somerset in Taunton

Poole House in Castle Street, Nether Stowey

The Old House, St Mary Street, Nether Stowey

Quantock Savings Bank, Lime Street, Nether Stowey

Quantock Savings Bank, Lime Street, Nether Stowey

Old School, Nether Stowey (now the public library)

Thomas Poole's gravestone in St Mary's churchyard

Thomas Poole's Memorial inside St Mary's church

Lorna Doone

Lorna Doone is a very long novel by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825-1900), which was first published in 1869.  It is a romance set in the late 17th century around the Badgworthy Water area of Exmoor. 

In 1673 12 year old John Ridd's farmer father is killed by Carver Doone.   The Doones are a family of outlaws who live in the isolated Doone Valley and terrorise the area. He vows to avenge his father's death.  He falls in love with Lorna Doone but so does Carver Doone.  After he is himself attacked by the Doones, John's uncle Reuben Huckaback gets Judge Jeffreys to help fight the Doones.  John rescues Lorna from the Doones during a blizzard.

A short time later the Monmouth Rebellion takes place and John is wrongly accused of fighting with the Duke of Monmouth against King James II.  He is rescued before he is hanged and is made a knight after he prevents an attack on Lorna's uncle. The Doones are attacked and all are killed except for Carver. 

It turns out that Lorna is not a Doone at all but was kidnapped by the Doones as a young girl and is in fact the daughter of a wealthy lord. At John and Lorna's wedding in Oare Church, Carver shoots Lorna.  He is chased into a bog by John and dies.  Lorna recovers and they live happily ever after. 

 Lorna Doone's Statue in Dulverton

This statue was made by Professor George Stephenson. It was commissioned by Dr Whitman Pearson of the USA and donated to the town of Dulverton in 1990

Lorna Doone celebrates the Queen's Platinum Jubilee with a Union Jack in her hand, June 2022

Lank Combe, Exmoor
 This is thought to be the location of the fictional Doone Valley

Memorial to R.D. Blackmore on the banks of Badgworthy Water, Exmoor.
It was erected in 1969 to mark the centenary of the publication of Lorna Doone.

 Nave of Oare Church
 - Lorna was shot by Carver Doone while standing at the altar.

 Window in Oare Church through which Lorna Doone was shot

 Oare Church
 

Water slide in the Lank Combe Stream where John and Lorna meet for the first time

Richard Doddridge Blackmore's Memorial Plaque on the wall of Oare Church

Gravestone of a real life Lorna Doone Ridd in the churchyard at Martinhoe in North Devon

She died in 1955 aged 75.

Jack and Jill Hill, Kilmersdon

Jack and Jill Hill in Kilmersdon is supposed to have been the inspiration for the nursery rhyme of the same name.  It links Ames Lane to School Lane.  

There are several theories about the origin of the rhyme. One story is that Jack and Jill were a married couple, who lived in Kilmersdon. One day Jack went up the hill to collect some water when he was killed by a boulder dislodged from a nearby quarry, which hit him on the head.  Jill died of a broken heart shortly after giving birth to their son, who was then raised by the villagers of Kilmersdon and known as Jill's son.  The surname Gilson is apparently still common in the Kilmersdon area

Other theories, which are not linked to Kilmersdon, are a Scandinavian story about 2 children called Hjuki and Bil, who were stolen by the moon while collecting water or Henry VII's ministers Empson and Dudley, who were executed soon after he came to the throne.

There are six stone markers up the hill, which have individual lines from the rhyme carved on them.

Ames Lane leads to Jack and Jill Hill

Looking up Jack and Jill Hill, Kilmersdon from the bottom

 Jack and Jill well and plaque on the side of Kilmersdon School at the top of the hill

 There are 6 of these marker stones placed at intervals up the hill.  This is the one nearest to the top - it says "Jill came tumbling after."

Plaque mounted on the side of Kilmersdon School at the top of the hill

Jack and Jill Gates at Kilmersdon School

Jack and Jill as a straw finial on the roof of The Thatched Cottage

The Thatched Cottage, Kilmersdon