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

Hannah More, Writer and Philanthropist

Hannah More, writer and philanthropist, was born in Fishponds, Bristol on 2^nd February 1745.  Her father Joseph More was a schoolmaster and she had four sisters.   She was precocious and quick witted and her passion for learning was quickly recognised by her parents and older sisters, who all helped to educate her.  Joseph More ensured that all his daughters were educated, so that they would be able to earn a living for themselves by running a boarding school for girls.   He set up a school in Bristol for Hannah’s older sisters Mary and Elizabeth to run when Hannah was 12 years old and she attended the school.  By her late teens Hannah was teaching at the school.

Hannah started writing stories and poetry at an early age.  In 1762 her first significant work, a pastoral drama poem entitled The Search after Happiness, was published in Bristol.  In it she expressed her views on the education of women and their role in society.  It was republished in London in 1773 and had sold over 10,000 copies by the mid-1780s.

In 1767 William Turner of Belmont House at Wraxall proposed marriage to Hannah and she accepted.  However he was 20 years older than her and he postponed their wedding three times. In 1773 Hannah broke off their engagement and, after suffering a nervous breakdown as a result, resolved never to marry.  She turned down several subsequent marriage proposals. Feeling guilty William Turner persuaded her to accept an annuity of £200, which made her financially secure and independent.

In 1773 Hannah and her sisters Sarah and Martha visited London for the first time.  She was introduced to many notable people, including the artist Joshua Reynolds, the actor and playwright David Garrick and the writer Dr Samuel Johnson.  Her visits to London became annual events and on her second visit she was invited to join the Bluestocking circle, which was a group of intellectual women with literary interests. David Garrick put on Hannah’s first play The Inflexible Captive at the Theatre Royal in bath in April 1775.  Her second play Percy was performed in Covent Garden in London in 1777.  For various reasons Hannah became disillusioned with the literary world after 1779.

Hannah’s Christian faith became deeper in the 1780s and she became involved in the campaign to abolish slavery.  In 1784 she moved to a cottage at Cowslip Green near Wrington.  Hannah had many books and tracts published on a variety of moral issues.  She became friendly with anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce and he encouraged her and her sisters to set up schools to educate the children of poor people. 

Hannah and Martha’s first school was in Cheddar and it opened in 1789.  The children were taught to read and learned about the Bible and the Christian faith.  Hannah didn’t want them to be taught to write because she thought this would encourage them to be dissatisfied with their lowly situation.  The school was a success and so the sisters owned a second one in Shipham.  This was followed by another 10 in villages around the Mendips, including Blagdon, Yatton, Sandford, Congresbury, Banwell and Nailsea over the following decade. They also started evening classes for adults, weekday classes for girls to learn how to sew, knit, and spin, and a number of women's friendly societies, which emphasised the virtues of cleanliness, decency and Christian behaviour. 

In 1799 Hannah’s definitive two volume work on the subject of women’s education,         Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education was published. All five More sisters moved to a large house called Barley Wood on the north east edge of Wrington in 1801.

Hannah’s schools encountered opposition from local landowners and farmers who did not want their labourers to be educated.  She was also opposed by some local clergymen, who accused her of encouraging Methodism at Blagdon School in 1800.  Hannah defended herself well but closed Blagdon School in order to protect the reputation of her other schools.

Hannah suffered from ill health for the last 20 years of her life and one by one her beloved sisters died.  In 1828 her friends persuaded her to move to Clifton in Bristol, so they could look after her.  Hannah died on 7th September 1733 aged 88 in Clifton and was buried with her sisters in All Saints’ Churchyard in Wrington.

Bust of Hannah More in the porch of All Saints' Parish Church, Wrington 

Grave of Hannah More and her 4 sisters in the churchyard at Wrington

All Saints' Church, Wrington

Tithe Barn, Nailsea

This building housed Hannah More’s school for nearly 200 years from 1789

Hannah More’s name lives on today in three local street names – Hannah More Road in Nailsea and Hannah More Close in Wrington and in Cheddar.  There also still two schools named after her – Hannah More Primary School in St Philips, Bristol and Hannah More Infant School in Nailsea.

Hannah More Road, Nailsea

Hannah More Close, Wrington

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

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff near Cardiff on 13^th September 1916. His parents, Harald and Sofie Dahl, were Norwegians and his father was a shipbroker. In 1918 his sister Else was born and the family moved to Radyr, a village just outside Cardiff.  In 1920 Roald’s 7 year old sister Astri died of appendicitis, a few weeks later his father died at the age of 57 and later the same year Roald’s youngest sister Asta was born.  In 1921 the family moved back to Llandaff.

From 1923-25 Roald attended Llandaff Cathedral School.  In 1925 he went as a boarder to St Peter’s School in Shrubbery Road, Weston-super-Mare.  He was very homesick at first but remained at the school until 1929 when he was 13.  He then attended Repton Public School until he was 18.  St Peter’s School closed and was demolished in the 1970s and a housing estate was built on the site.  The only physical reminder of its existence is one of the roads, which is named St Peters Avenue.  Roald Dahl’s autobiography, Boy, includes several chapters about his time at St Peter’s School.

St Peters Avenue, Weston-super-Mare

Blue plaque on 2 St Peters Avenue, Weston-super-Mare

In 1934 Roald began working for Shell Oil in Tanganyika but at the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF in Nairobi, Kenya and learnt to fly a Tiger Moth plane.  He was severely injured in a plane crash in Libya in 1940 and as a result of his injuries he was no longer able to fly and returned to Britain in 1941.

In 1942 he was posted to Washington DC as an Assistant Air Attaché in the British Embassy.  He remained in the USA for 4 years and it was during this time that he began to write and had his first book, The Gremlins, published.  In 1946 his first short story collection, Over to You, was published and he returned to the UK.  He moved to Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire with his mother and sister Asta.

In 1953 he married the American actress Patricia Neal and they had 4 daughters and a son together, although their daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis aged 7 in 1962.  In 1954 they bought Little Whitefield Cottage in Great Missenden.  They later renamed it Gipsy House.  This was the place where Roald Dahl lived for the rest of his life.  He wrote many of his stories sitting in an armchair in a writing hut, which he had built in the garden of his house.

Gipsy House, Great Missenden

In 1961 Roald Dahl’s first famous children’s book, James and the Giant Peach, was published in the USA.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in the USA in 1964.  Both were published in the UK in 1967 and so was The Magic Finger.  Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay for the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, which was released in 1967. Many more of his stories and books of poetry for children, along with several short story collections for adults, were published in the 1970s and 1980s. 

In 1981 Roald separated from his wife Patricia and in 1983 he married Felicity Crosland. Esio Trot was the last book to be published in his lifetime.  He died on 23^rd November 1990 aged 74 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Great Missenden.  His last book, The Minpins, was published posthumously in 1991.

Roald Dahl's grave

Many of Roald Dahl’s short stories and children’s books have been made into films or television programmes.  He is still one of the world’s best-selling authors.

In 2005 the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre was opened in Great Missenden.

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden

Enormous Crocodile sculpture, Cardiff Bay

Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay

Roald Dahl's family regularly worshipped at this church in its original location in Cardiff Docks, close to where the Millennium Centre now stands. It was dismantled in 1987 and re-erected in its current position in 1992.  It is now used as an arts centre and café.

Norma Huxtable: Exmoor author

Norma May Huxtable (nee Devereux) lived at Lower Chilcott Farm near Dulverton with her farmer husband Arthur and ran a bed and breakfast at their farmhouse for over 35 years. She wrote three humorous books about running a B&B, life on Exmoor and local characters:

• The Last Word on Exmoor - published 2001
• Positively the Last Word on Exmoor - published 2002
• Norma Huxtable's Exmoor Exposed - published 2007

She was also an after dinner speaker at local events.  

Norma Huxtable died on 17th January 2012, aged 85.  There is a wooden cross with a memorial plaque dedicated to her located by the side of a public footpath, which runs from Higher and Lower Chilcott to Willway.  It is much closer to Chilcott than Willway. 

Norma's memorial cross

Plaque on the cross

Lower Chilcott Farm

Thomas Coryate's Shoes, Odcombe Church

Thomas Coryat(e) was born in the village of Odcombe in around 1577.  His father George was the rector of Odcombe.  Thomas went to school in Winchester.  He then went to Oxford University for three years, where he studied Greek and Latin, but he left without a degree.  He wanted to see the world and become famous.  He joined the household of Henry, Prince of Wales, thanks to his acquaintance with the Phelips family of Montacute.  He was the unofficial court jester.

In May 1608 Thomas sailed from Dover to Calais and travelled on to Paris.  He was befriended by members of King Henri IV's household.  He then travelled on to Lyon, Savoy, Turin, Milan, Mantua, Padua and Venice.  He walked some of the way, carrying only a staff and a knife for protection, but he also travelled by boat, horseback, coach and cart.  He arrived in Venice on 24th June 1608 and stayed in the city for 6 weeks.  He then returned to England via Padua, Vincenza, Verona, Bergamo, Zurich, Basel, Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Mainz, Cologne, Middelburg and Flushing.  He was threatened with violence by a German peasant in the Black Forest when he was caught picking grapes in a vineyard.   He sailed from Flushing (Vlissingen) in the Netherlands to London and arrived there on 3rd October 1608, having travelled approximately 1,975 miles. 

On his return to Odcombe Thomas Coryat hung his shoes up in the parish church.  They remained there until the early 18th century.  They were lost at some point after this and today there is a stone replica of the shoes hanging on the wall in the church of St Peter and St Paul.

Table forks were widely used in Italy at this time, but not in England.  Thomas acquired one, which he brought back to England and he is credited with introducing forks to this country. 

Thomas Coryate wrote a book about his experiences called Coryats Crudities.  Thomas asked well known people to write commendatory or panegyric verses to preface his book.  About 60 people supplied contributions, some of which mocked or insulted Thomas.  The book was published in 1611.  It was possibly the first ever guidebook for travellers to Europe.  The book contained illustrations; statistics; architectural descriptions; information about local customs, prices, exchange rates, food and drink.  In the book he described how the Italians shielded themselves from the sun and he was the first person to use the word "umbrella" in English literature.

On 20th October 1612 Thomas set off again on his travels. He sailed to Constantinople (now Istanbul), in Turkey where he stayed for 10 months and learnt Turkish and Italian.  In January 1614 he sailed to Iskenderun in Turkey and then travelled on to Aleppo (Syria).  In March 1614 he walked with a caravan of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem via Damascus.  He then visited Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jericho and the River Jordan before walking back to Aleppo.  He stayed there for 4 months writing up his notes, which he sent back to England.  These were eventually published in 1625 by Thomas Purchas in his Purchas his Pilgrimes.

Thomas Coryate, who was known as the Odcombian Legstretcher, then decided to walk to India, to prove he was the greatest walker in the world.  He joined a caravan of people and walked to Isfahan (Iran) via Diyarbakir (Turkey), Tabriz (Iran) and Qazvin (Iran).  After 2 months in Isfahan he joined another caravan and walked to Ajmer in India via Kandahar (Afghanistan), Multan (Pakistan), Lahore (Pakistan), Delhi and Agra. He arrived in Ajmer in July 1615, having walked a total of about 3,300 miles from Aleppo to Ajmer.  He stayed in Ajmer for 14 months where he learnt Persian and Hindustani and continued to study Turkish and Arabic.  In September 1616 Thomas left Ajmer and visited Kangra and Hardwar before returning to Agra in July 1617.  He then travelled 400 miles to visit the ruined city of Mandu. 

In November 1617 Thomas set off for Surat.  He died of dysentery at Surat in Gujarat in December 1617.

Thomas Coryate said Odcombe, was famous for five things:

 "its wholesome and pleasant air; its wool; its Church 'being erected upon so loftie a place that it overprieth and overtoppeth the whole countrie round about', its sweet springs of water, and finally and most important, the love and unity of its inhabitants, 'for we all from the verie highest to the lowest are most firmly knit together in an indissoluble knot of friendship."

Replica of Thomas Coryate's shoes in Odcombe Church

Am I the only one who thinks the shoes look like flatbreads decorated with cheese and tomatoes?

Thomas Coryate's thoughts about Odcombe

Piece of brick from Thomas Coryate's grave in Surat, India

Dom Moraes' memorial in Odcombe Churchyard

Dom Moraes (19th July 1938 – 2nd June 2004) was an Indian writer and poet.  He wrote in English and published a number of books.  He was fascinated by Thomas Coryate's life and visited Odcombe on several occasions.  In 2003 he and his partner Sarayu Srivatsa visited Odcombe to promote their book about Thomas Coryate - The Long Strider: How Thomas Coryate Walked from England to India in the Year 1613.  He brought with him a piece of brick from Thomas Coryate's grave and this is now mounted on a shelf in Odcombe Church, next to the replica shoes.

After Dom's death in 2004, Sarayu brought some earth from his grave in India and scattered it in Odcombe Churchyard.  He also installed a memorial stone to Dom in the churchyard close to the main entrance to the church.

St Peter and St Paul's Church, Odcombe

St Peter and St Paul's Church, Odcombe