Category Archives: Travels

Jun 13 2026

C S LEWIS AND THE RECOVERY FROM WAR (Part 4)

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QUALITY OF CARE

At the Endsleigh Palace Hotel Hospital in 1918, the injured C S Lewis was able to enjoy a more homely atmosphere and level of comfort.  We’re told each floor had a “still room” where “ladies” served tea and coffee in the morning and afternoon, on white china plates, with toast ready on toast racks [1]  Again, a novelist’s imagination can visualise all sort of conversations going on surreptitiously over the tea and toast!  Some of these “ladies” may well have been “Ladies” with a capital “L’ as many members of the aristocracy did this sort of war work, like Dorothy L Sayers’ fictional Lady Mary Wimsey [2].

But Lewis’ treatment included massage [3], so  I assume this was by male orderlies, but he doesn’t say.

One of the most striking things when reading articles in the British Journal of Nursing (BJN) for this period, edited by Mrs Bedford Fenwick, is the suffragette and militant tone of much of the writing.  The nurses are on the move, organising demonstrations and marches, arguing in public, doing committee work, and confronting ineptitude in high places –  they want their rightful place!  They want proper professional recognition, not just being patronised by non-medical men with titles, and the female contributors in general want to work for future peace.  They refuse to be limited to what had been called “a Woman’s Sphere”, especially as the  current needs of men were so great.

A poem published in the BJN in 1915 illustrates this well:

“They talk about a woman’s sphere

As though it had a limit;

There’s not a place in earth or heaven,

There’s not a task to mankind given,

There’s not a blessing or a woe,

There’s not a whispered yes or no,

There’s not a life, or death, or birth,

That has a feather’s weight of worth,

Without a woman in it.”

And throughout the British Journal of Nursing there are constant reminders – in reports of talks by church leaders and in the Editorial comments – that nurses need to remember that they are doing the work of Christ the Healer, to which indeed many of the nurses testify in their letters and feedback from the hospital frontlines.  As John Storrs, the Dean of Rochester, is quoted at the time as saying in an article for nurses: “Learn to love Him, and you will not fail to throw your heart into all that you do in His name and for Him”, adding that “The splendid “nerve” of the trained nurse has been one of the glories of the war.” [4]  

But, as always, these more uplifting passages in the British Journal of Nursing are interspersed with news items and advice of more down-to-earth and sobering information, such as teaching on Venereal Disease, and how to help a man who’s cut his own throat.

HOSPITAL SURROUNDINGS

Of course it was important for those who could walk well enough to get some exercise.  Lewis certainly did.  Nearby were beautiful squares of greenery surrounded by iron railings, like Gordon Square Gardens. These resemble mini-parks, which still contain loungers and walkers escaping their work or just resting today.  

Fortunately for us, we can turn to 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Edwards’ photograph album again for a 1917 photo of the gardens as Lewis would have known them, to see that they looked almost exactly the same as today.

Lewis writes to his father on 12 June 1918 to thank him for a new brown suit and collars and ties.  He can now get out of bed and indeed has even been out a few times [6]. It feels wonderful just to have pockets without buttons and to wear a different tie everyday.  But his own valise with his kit and books from the Front has not yet arrived.

However, his first trip out of the hospital almost ended in disaster, when a lorry (driven by “some woman”) crashed into the back of his cab.  Fortunately no one was hurt, but it did make Lewis wonder about what “the fates” had in store for him, as if he wasn’t going to be allowed to be at peace [7].

It is astonishing to think that if Lewis could have travelled back in time only thirteen years he could have bumped into another future Literary Great in Gordon Square Gardens, one who would also begin a Thursday evening meeting for like-minded people to discuss their work and surrounding culture, just as Lewis was to begin the Thursday evening Inklings in Oxford.  How would Lewis have got on with the twenty two year old Virginia Stephen (later Woolf) who had moved into number 46 Gordon Square in 1904, beginning her Thursday get-togethers in 1905 with her brother Thoby and his Cambridge friends?

If Lewis had been lingering on the grass or learning to walk again along the paths of the gardens then, he could have bumped into Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, W B Yeats (one of Lewis’ poetic heroes) or E M Forster as they descended on number 46 for tea and buns and literary exaltation.  Virginia was to live in several of the local squares – Fitzroy, Brunswick, Tavistock (where she and Leonard ran the Hogarth Press for fifteen years).  The Woolfs then stayed in Mecklenburgh Square until it was bombed in 1940 (and where Dorothy L Sayers was to live in the 1921, and make it the home of her character,  the writer Harriet Vane).

But Virginia Woolf later wrote that Gordon Square had been the main HQ of the Bloomsbury Group and a place of great peace and restfulness for her.  Anyway, it’s perhaps a good thing that she and Lewis did not overlap in time whilst meandering under the trees, as their literary futures lay in very different directions.  But it is intriguing to know that another Bloomsbury Group member could have bumped into Lewis crossing the Gardens – the brilliant economist John Maynard Keynes,  was by then living at number 46 in the Square as a tenant of Clive and Vanessa Bell, and so did overlap with Lewis’ time in the hospital.

The BJN tells of various events that were put on for wounded soldiers from military hospitals in London, such as tea and entertainment at the Lyceum, and an exhibition of artificial limbs at Roehampton House Hospital (these were demonstrated by an ex-soldier who would show the efficiency of his own artificial leg).  That could so easily have been of interest to Lewis but fortunately his leg wound, though it hurt a lot, was his least serious.

But he was able to send good news to his friend Arthur Greeves back in Ireland on 17 June 1918.  Lewis had been able to go to the opera on the previous Friday evening, to hear Wagner’s The Valkyrie conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at Drury Lane.  The thrill of it restored feelings that he hadn’t experienced in five years.  He was obviously feeling a lot physically stronger too as, when someone in the seat in front of him kept standing up in enthusiasm during the performance, Lewis pulled him down into his seat again by his coat tails!  He was also able to see Faust.  These were presumably with Mrs Moore, judging from his letters to his father and Arthur [8].  But even though he could now walk around and explore London, there were little incidents to remind him of his invalid status, and not just the pain in his leg.  Once in Piccadilly (visiting Hatchard’s, the famous bookshop?), the bandage above his knee fell round his ankle and he had to get a taxi back to the hospital [9]. 

LEAVING THE HOSPITAL

As I descended the former hospital floor by floor, there were very few original elements of the building’s interior decor left to record.  It was now all utilitarian minimalist corridors of offices or student facilities and therefore impossible to tell what it had once been like as either a hotel or a hospital.

The only unusual item that stood out was a section of a decorative iron railing which may have been from Lewis’ time there, as it looked pretty integral to the building.

After taking my photos, I thereforeI left the building feeling a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more that resonated with the World War One period, but exhilarated that I had penetrated a building that had once held my literary hero when he was also a war hero.

But this research did ultimately lead me to read the testimonies of so many other ‘Everymen’ and ‘Everywomen’ who struggled and suffered in this terrible War.  It was an honour to read the first-hand accounts of the sacrifice and triumphs of soldiers and nurses who fought for life side by side.  It helped me to see the experience of C S Lewis in his context and in a deeper way than from just his own self-effacing words.  I can understand more fully now how Lewis was able to find a ‘safe place’ in literature, to try to forget the horrors of what he had seen and felt, even if they did come back to haunt his dreams.  It made his subsequent achievements even more impressive as he, with others, was able to claw back and then enhance the civilisation that had seemed lost, with literary contributions of his own, and speak with renewed moral authority to his own scarred generation, and beyond.

But this is not the end of the story of 2nd Lieutenant Jack Lewis’ recovery from war.  He was to be sent next to continue his recuperation to a another Red Cross Military Hospital in the beautiful mansion called Ashton Court on the outskirts of Bristol, in the south west of England, nearer to Ireland and the sea.

Of course we all know that Lewis did indeed recover.  But perhaps, as a postscript, you will be pleased to know that 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Edwards, whose photo album we have been sharing along the way, that he too recovered, despite losing his foot due to a grenade.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for saving the lives of other men, and after the Endsleigh Palace Hotel hospital he was sent to a castle by the sea on the south west coast, where of course he continued to take pictures.  He recovered sufficiently to take over the family business in Bloomsbury after the War, marry his sweetheart, and live to be eighty five!

Here is a photo of his, of soldiers recovering in Gordon Square Gardens in 1917, just as Lewis would have done. Even in sepia, one can tell how little the green space has changed in over a hundred years.

The next place in our ‘pilgrimage’ to sites where Lewis recovered from war, therefore, will be Ashton Court in Bristol.

NOTES

1]  British Journal of Nursing (BJN), Vol 55, 17 July 1915, www.rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk.

2]  Advert in BJN, Vol 60, 18 May 1918, pvii.

3]  C S Lewis, Collected Letters, edited by Walter Hooper, Vol 1, p381.

4]  BJN, May 25, 1918, vol 70, p362.

5]  https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2000-05-126-1  Out of Copyright.

6]  C S Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol 1, 12 June 1918, p379.

7]  Ibid.,p380.

8]  C S Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol 1, 20? June 1918, p386.

9]  Ibid., p387.

Jun 7 2026

C S LEWIS AND THE RECOVERY FROM WAR (PART 3)

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LEWIS’ EXPERIENCE IN HOSPITAL

As we have already seen, back in Britain the Red Cross by 1918 had taken over a large number of institutional buildings, and even stately homes, in order to tend to the wounded, so the Endsleigh Palace Hotel in London was one of many.

The injured Lewis was taken across the English Channel from France, probably on 24 May 1918, a very dangerous journey because of German attacks on shipping.  In fact every stage of the journey had its perils.  Not only had the field hospital at Étaples where Lewis had been staying been bombed, but there was no mercy from the Germans for any of the injured at any point.  The British Journal of Nursing (BJN) at the time reports hair-raising firsthand accounts of the danger to medical staff and patients left behind in France and the huge risks taken by those seeking to escape the Germans and get to safety.

No wonder the nurses themselves often suffered shell shock and needed places of recovery as well as the soldiers and sailors. There are many accounts in the BJN of horrific incidents that fill in some of the detail missing in the more restrained reminiscences of Lewis and Tolkien, for example. But one report by a nurse in France could not help but remind me of a very important incident in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Gandalf the wizard’s shout at the fiery Balrog: “You cannot pass!” (or “You shall not pass!” in the film version). This was a cry that would have been very familiar to everyone of Tolkien and Lewis’ generation who knew about warfare at the Western Front in France. The phrase “Ils ne passerons pas!” was a rallying cry for the French soldiers in the midst of battle:

Back in England, Lewis would have been transferred to a hospital train in order to reach his first recovery hospital in London.  There had been many medical and scientific advances during the war, including a new design for a stretcher by the Americans which was very adaptable, which could have been the one used for Lewis by this point.

The nurses did their best to make the injured men as comfortable as possible for the journey.  The next photo is not very clear, but it shows how canaries were kept in cages on hospital trains so their songs could cheer up the wounded! [1]

All wounded men from the Front were brought to Charing Cross station before being separated out to different locations for recovery.  There is a Pathé news film clip of such an arrival, and the crowds of people wanting to cheer them on but of course also looking out for the return of loved ones [2].  From the station they would be taken next door to Charing Cross hospital for triage, so that they could be allocated to the appropriate place according to the severity of their wounds, so of course this was also the case for 2nd Lieutenant ‘Jack’ Lewis [3].

The place chosen for Lewis, as we know, was the Red Cross Military Hospital that had been the Endsleigh Palace Hotel in the Bloomsbury area of London.

On 25 May 1918 Lewis sent a telegram to his father that he was now at the Endsleigh Palace Hospital, Endsleigh Gardens, London. He was now well enough to sit up in bed to read and write letters [4].

We can again turn to the photo album of 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Edwards to see an example of a room at this hospital from 1917, probably the very sort that Lewis had.  As you can see, it is a stripped-down version of an Edwardian hotel room, with a fireplace and rug, a bedside table and lamp, and vases of flowers, so much more like home.

Lewis himself was very pleased with having his own room, tea in the morning, a relatively large bed, and close proximity to London’e bookshops.  He is almost hoping that the two pieces of shrapnel in his chest will give a bit more trouble so he won’t have to return to the Front [5].

I particularly wanted to see the view from the top floor where Lewis had his room.  So this was a view familiar to Lewis, although of course it is now hugely changed.  I could see a long way across many roof tops, but the view is now dominated by the British Telecom Tower in Fitzrovia from the 1960s. which would of course not have been there in CSL’s day, nor would many of the other buildings.

I could only take photos from the corridor as I did not go into the individual rooms that are now offices.  From what Lewis says in his long letter to Arthur of 29th May 1918, his room faced north and he could see a huge expanse of houses, and in the distance a green hill with trees which he was told was Hampstead [6].  As I said previously, that is where I lived in the early 1980s, when I was travelling everyday to do my research, then teacher training, to the same area of London as this hospital.  Apparently Euston Station was in the foreground of the view from Lewis’ room.  From the other end of the corridor, all I could see was the fire escape!

But at least my photos can give an idea of some of the views over London that Lewis would have had going to and from his own room, and also just how far you can see from that floor of the former hospital.   

LEWIS’ READING

The British Journal of Nursing in May 1918 asks readers to send books to the Red Cross War Library, Surrey House, Marble Arch, London W1: “Our troops need thousands of the best, grave and gay, so don’t miss this chance of doing them a real good turn.  What would life be, even in a happy environment, without books?  Then realise how all-important they are for the brain rest and amusement of those at the front.” [7]  Lewis, of course, was quick to turn to books for stimulation and comfort, now he had got a “Blighty” that meant he could leave the war behind and return home for a while.  He had already read Walter Scott’s Old Mortality and Guy Mannering in the field hospital,

plus Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, probably in the very portable Everyman editions.

He now enjoyed The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing.  He went on to relish the rest of The Barchester Chronicles, partly because it reminded him of the reading available at home [8].  Other reading included Hume, Maeterlinck, and Swinburne.

Lewis suggested to his father a ‘pilgrimage’ they could make together to see their old tutor Kirkpatrick in Great Bookham in Surrey [9]. This didn’t happen with his father, but he did have a companion when he visited Kirkpatrick on Sunday 16 June.  Was this his ‘adopted mother’ Mrs Moore?

Meanwhile Lewis is actually sending books to Arthur from the lovely old bookshop Hatchard’s in Piccadilly (ah, I remember several happy visits there)!

And he has sent home a fine edition of Yeats’ poetry for future use, and has bought to keep with him Dent’s Malory with designs by Beardsley.

Lewis is obviously enjoying the beautiful look and feel of the books themselves.  At Hatchard’s he was also shown fine old copies of Virgil and Rabelais and some of the Morris Kelmscott Press editions including Chaucer, but fortunately the type didn’t appeal to him as they were very expensive, and I suspect on the large side to lug up to the top floor of the Endsleigh Red Cross Hospital! He was probably better off at this point sticking to the more portable Everyman editions, or ‘Everymen’ as he called them.

Part 4 of this series will cover Lewis’ increasing mobility and his exploration of the surroundings of the Endsleigh hospital, plus details of his nursing care before his transfer to Ashley Court in Bristol.

NOTES

1]  Canaries on board hospital train to cheer soldiers in BNJ, Vol 60, May 18, 1918.

2]  British soldiers returning wounded via Charing Cross station – Pathé news film clip

https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/76237/  .

3]  Injured being brought to Charing Cross Hospital for triage – https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205025659 .

4]  C S Lewis, ColLected Letters, Vol 1, edited by Walter Hooper, p373.

5]  Ibid.,p374.

6]  Ibid.,p375.

7]  British Journal of Nursing, Vol 60, 25 May, p365.

8]  C S Lewis, ibid., p380.

9]  Ibid, p380.

May 30 2026

C S LEWIS AND THE RECOVERY FROM WAR (PART 2)

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ENDSLEIGH PALACE HOTEL AS MILITARY HOSPITAL

In this second part, I am now turning to my exploration inside the building that was converted from the very smart Endsleigh Palace Hotel into a Red Cross Military Hospital in the London of 1915.   It has recently become the Student Union for University College London (UCL).  What would be left of the original building as the injured officer C S Lewis would have seen it?  Or would everything from the First World War era have been removed or painted over?  And what state was Lewis in when he arrived there, at that point not world famous but just an ‘Everyman’, an injured soldier trying to survive, although perhaps not heal so well he’d be sent back to the Front Line in France?  Meanwhile there were still lots of Everyman editions of classic books for him to read…

MY TOUR OF THE BUILDING

Fortunately I had phoned ahead to make sure that it was OK for me as an alumna of UCL to tour the building, so I had no problem with the uniformed security guard inside the entrance. 

On his left was a shop with the usual student union goods for sale, including sweatshirts and hoodies, 

and to the right was Gordon’s Café, the student union place for hot drinks and sandwiches, crisps, and all the usual chocolate and snack bars without which enduring the next lecture, for most, would feel an impossibility. 

I decided to take advantage of this facility and so had a quick early lunch, all the time feeling like a middle-aged imposter amongst all the young faces.

 I did feel as though I was on a secret mission and that at any moment the security guard would change his mind and haul me out!  Although that’s probably taking ‘imposter syndrome’ a bit far.

I tried to concentrate on the building’s interior, but so far there was nothing very inspiring under all the white paint.  Definitely a utilitarian ‘health and safety’ vibe up to this point.

 But it was more important to me to see the upper floors where Lewis would have stayed.  There was a very small lift. so I thought I would go to the top floor first and work my way down by the stairs, looking in at each floor as I went.  Would the lift have been there in Lewis’ day? Quite possibly, as there were several lifts back then, including one that was large enough for stretcher cases.

EARLY FIELD HOSPITAL TREATMENT IN FRANCE

But just to backtrack a bit, Lewis had already needed hospital treatment before the more severe wounds that brought him back to England.

CSL had written to his great friend Arthur Greeves on 2 February 1918 that he had been admitted to No 10 British Red Cross Hospital at Le Tréport in France.  This was with a bout of Pyrexia or ‘trench fever’, and he was very glad to be away from the Front Line [1].   He then reassured his father that the illness wasn’t much worse than ‘flu [2].  In his next letter to Arthur, he mentions reading Boswell on Johnson and the Everyman copy he bought in Oxford.

How he longs to ramble in the bookshops in ‘The Broad’ in Oxford! (Presumably he’s referring to Blackwell’s, but perhaps also Thornton’s which I remember before it closed in 2002).  He has ordered the Everyman copy of ‘The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini’ from a bookshop in London. 

He describes to his father Le Tréport as a little fishing village with cliffs and a grey sea.  He was still in the hospital on the 18th of February because, after recovering once, he then had a relapse.  He asks his father to get him a cheap edition of Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ which he’s wanted to read for a time [3]

To Arthur Greeves he writes that he is hoping for another relapse so he can stay in the hospital, but it probably won’t happen because “the gods hate me” [4].  One is tempted to think “Be careful what you wish for.”  He recommends a bookshop called ‘Ovenell’s’ on Broad Street, Oxford, where they do a good job of binding books.  He sings the praises of his Everyman version of Cellini, the thinness and crispness of the paper and the ideal size of the font and margins.

We can tell that Lewis liked a physical copy of a book that fed his senses as well as his mind.  He’s not impressed with the “piles of trash” in the hospital library but has settled on George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ for bedtime reading [5]. He is also reading and speaking as much French as he can.

LEWIS’ WOUNDS

Lewis did his best to reassure his father that he was safe when he was returned to the Front.  But then a note arrived in Belfast for his ‘Papy’ and not in Lewis’s hand, the sort of note every parent of a soldier was dreading. It was dated 16 April 1918 and said ‘Jack’ had been “slightly wounded” and was in hospital again.  The address was the Liverpool Merchants Mobile Hospital in Étaples.  As part of the Somerset Light Infantry at the Battle of Arras, centred on Riez de Vinage, Lewis was wounded in the chest, hand and leg on the 15th April.

What were these field hospitals like?

First the wounded would be taken to a Clearing Station before being moved to a base hospital.  The wounded had a label tied to their coat with details of their injuries.  Those in danger had a red border round the label.  They also were given a small bag for any belongings [6].  Lewis complains in a letter to his father about having his uniform cut off him, which he thought was excessive but seemed common practice [7]. 

An article in The British Nursing Journal gives a summary of conditions in the Étaples field hospitals, from a report by Miss Swift, Matron-in-Chief under the Joint War Committee in 1915:

“At Étaples, St John’s Brigade Hospital, which is well-arranged in huts, with a perfect equipment, theatre, electrical department, and every modern appliance.  The wards are large and airy.  Also the Liverpool Merchants’ Hospital, which is beautifully equipped and arranged…”  [8]

There is also an article in the British Nursing Journal that describes a train journey on the ‘Rapide’ passing Étaples with a view of the immense field hospital and the new ‘game’ played by the passengers of flinging cigarettes and newspapers, chocolate and other gifts out of the windows for the medics and patients there [9].

Ironically, Lewis’ wounds were caused by his own side, a case of “friendly fire”, from a shell burst.  His brother Warren visited him, worried that the wounds were severe, so was greatly relieved to find Jack in relatively good spirits.  He found out that Jack had narrowly escaped death – the sergeant next to him had been killed.   After losing consciousness for a while, Jack had managed to crawl back to safety and was carried the rest of the way by stretcher bearers [10]. 

 But he was unconscious again by the time his uniform had been cut off by medical staff.

The BJN quotes Colonel Sir J Cantlie saying that “a soldier’s chances of recovery from wounds are usually determined by his treatment during the first half hour in which he is brought from the trenches.” [11]

Lewis writes to his father that he was hit in the back of the left hand, just above the left knee and in the left side which meant he couldn’t lie on his side.  He eye was closed from dirt for a few days but thankfully recovered [12]. The shrapnel that went into his chest worked its way further in, but he was told it could stay there for the rest of his life if need be. 

A Nursing Sister on the Western Front, at the very place where Lewis was taken to a field hospital, fills in some of the detail and atmosphere for us in May 1918:

“You would like to know how we passed through this crisis.  I hardly know where to begin to tell you of that week, when, for the first time, we saw the war, we felt the war, and we lived at the war.  The impression that it left is a numbed, indescribable feeling, a depth of sorrow, an accumulation of fury that such things are possible; a heart-breaking pity for all who have suffered and an infinite regret that we could not do more.  I see the broken, bleeding men lying in long rows, with red-dyed bandages and whitening faces, waiting to be taken into the operating room.  Magnificent heroes, every man of them, both English and French.  I saw them being rushed into battle.  I saw them brought back on stretchers.  I saw some of them ‘die for their country’, always with the same high courage…. Every day the cannons became louder and the enemy came nearer, and the thunder of them seemed to become part of ourselves; it entered our brains, and because our heads did not open, it stayed there; and even yet there are days when I hear those awful crashes, an appalling sound.  We did not go to bed; we just lay down for half an hour, when we felt too exhausted to do any more.”  [13] 

This Nurse goes on to say that she watched so many men going up to the Front Line, who might die that night, she felt she had to smile for them:

“I had a curious feeling that I was smiling at men who were going to fight and die that night, and perhaps it was the last woman’s smile some of them would see….the frightfulness of the sacrifice of their young lives is sad, sad beyond words…  Have I not seen and heard real warriors going forth to battle?”

This helps to fill in some of the emotional impact of the battle lines and the difficulties of care for the wounded, detail that we do not see in Lewis’ letters.  Public school trained boys and soldiers did not show their emotion or vulnerability if they could possibly help it [14]. But the women who shared many of the same experiences with these male combatants can fill in some of the blanks for us.  The experiences of women as nurses in such dire circumstances went on to inform political and literary life, just as much as male experience. (One example that springs to mind is from the writing of Dorothy L Sayers – not only did her character Lord Peter Wimsey suffer shell-shock from his experience at the Front, but his sister Lady Mary spent time nursing in London in the War and got personally involved in political agitation there.)   Gilchrist argues: “Larger contexts than have so far been constructed in studying Lewis need to be considered in order to understand his experiences and his response to them.” [15]  I hope this is what I’m doing to some extent by introducing the perspectives in the British Nursing Journal into the picture.  Sometimes the nurses could speak when the men couldn’t.

But even for those wounded soldiers now ‘safely’ in a field hospital, the danger was by no means over.  There is a saying ‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire’.  Well, that certainly applies to the situation of any one being moved from the Front to the field hospitals at Étaples.   The field hospitals themselves were bombed!  Plus there was the dangerous sea crossing over to England.

Reference to the bombing of the field hospitals in Étaples was made by Bonar Law, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons.

He states that there were over 300 casualties [16]. 

The German bombers returned a week later to cause “a martyrdom of women and wounded men and hospital attendants” on Corpus Christi day when the Allies had agreed not to do any bombing [17]. 

In the House of Commons in June the numbers were given for the German attacks on our hospitals on the north coast of France from 15 May to 1 June 1918. The terrible total was that 248 had been killed and 593 wounded. [18]

Many medical staff gave their lives in order to stay with their patients who could not be moved.  They were like sitting ducks for the bombers.  Lewis himself wrote to Arthur Greeves that he was more afraid in this situation in the field hospitals when he couldn’t walk than he was in the trenches [19].

Part 3 will deal with Lewis’ experience in the Endsleigh military hospital and the surrounding area during his stay.

NOTES

1]  CSL, Collected Letters, Vol 1, edited by Walter Hooper, p352.

2]  CSL, ibid., p354.

3]  ibid., p358.

4]  ibid.

5]  ibid., p360.

6]  “Take In” Day at a Casualty Clearing Station, The British Nursing Journal, Vol 55, Oct 30, 1915, p353.

7]  CSL, Collected Letters, Vol 1, 14 May 1918, p368.

8]  British Nursing Journal, Vol 55, 30 October 1915, p357.

9]  BNJ Vol 55, 18 September 1915, p230.

10]  CSL, Collected Letters, Vol !, 14 May 1918, p366.

11]  BNJ, Vol 60, 15 June 1918, p418.

12]  CSL, Collected Letters, Vol !, 4 May 1918, p367.

13]  BNJ, Vol 60, May 1918, p348.

14]  K J Gilchrist begins his book A Morning After War: C S Lewis and World War 1 (Peter Lang, New York, 2005, p1) in the very first paragraph by stating that Lewis “obscured facts about his war service and its lingering effects”, and that Prof Don King has also pointed this out concerning Lewis’ early poetry – the main reason for this being the trauma itself and the “renewal of trauma by remembering.” (ibid., p2).

15]  ibid., p6.

16]  BNJ, Vol 60, 1 June 1918, p382.

17]  BNJ, Vol 60, 30 May, 1918, p399.

18]  BNJ, Vol 60, 15 June, 1918, p419. 

19]  CSL, Collected Letters Vol 1, 23 May 1918, p370.

May 25 2026

C S LEWIS AND THE RECOVERY FROM WAR (PART 1)

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C S LEWIS AND THE RECOVERY FROM WAR (Part 1)

The Endsleigh Palace Hotel, London

INTRODUCTION

This is the beginning of a photo journey exploring the places where C S Lewis recovered from his war wounds, involving hospitals and private houses, gardens and parkland, humble terrace houses and even a stately home.  It spans the years 1918 to the early 1920s and will take us from the centre of London to the outskirts of Bristol, and finally to Oxford where Lewis was to make his career and reputation.

When I was looking through all my material again recently, one theme kept cropping up.  And that was of C S Lewis as ‘Everyman’.  I had used a photo of a book of Christmas stories from the Everyman series of little hardbacks for my digital Christmas card one year, and so had several people asking what the book was and who was its publisher, so I was typing the word ‘Everyman’ quite a lot. 

 At the same time it seemed as though every book about Lewis that I picked up, especially his early letters, had Lewis referring to Everyman books – seeing them, wanting to buy them – calling them in the plural ‘Everymen’.

This made me think of a focus for my research into this period of Lewis’ life – Lewis as Everyman in the First World War and its aftermath, as he went through the same gruelling experiences and tragic loss and injury as the other men of his generation.  He was far from the great writer and Christian apologist to be known and hailed by future generations.  2nd Lieutenant ‘Jack’ Lewis was trying to be a published poet, like so many other young war poets, was not a confessing Christian, and his immediate task was just to stay alive after the brutalities of trench warfare.

‘PILGRIMAGE’

I thought I would present this research as a series of blogs, covering places where I had personal contacts who would let me photograph the interiors of buildings not usually accessible to outsiders, and therefore hopefully of great interest to students of C S Lewis  – photos never seen before, of places not normally seen.  It would also be something of a ‘pilgrimage’ and adventure for me.  Others had been to the sites of the First World War battlefields in France, but I could hopefully have an equivalent experience with the places in the UK where Lewis went to recover from the war, both in medical and personal terms.  So, places where I had contacts or unique access included the Endsleigh Palace Hotel in London, Ashton Court in Bristol, Ravenswood Road and Clifton College in Bristol, and the house called ‘Hillsboro’ in Oxford.

This meant that I would start with

Endsleigh Palace Hotel, London – sometime Red Cross Hospital, now the Student Union of University College London.  Its address is 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AY in the London Borough of Camden.

I see with amazement that the photos from this journey are time-stamped 10th August 2016.  Was it really that long ago?  I had been staying in Oxford, to do some work at the Bodleian Library, so the bus ride to London didn’t take long. 

 Most bus journeys blend in the mind into an amorphous cloud, but this one I remember more than others as I was really excited.  I had two reasons for my journey, and both were in the nature of semi-pilgrimage: firstly to examine the environs of the former Endsleigh Palace Hotel, which had been the first hospital in England to receive the wounded Lewis, and to explore inside.  Secondly, to re-visit my old haunts in Hampstead in north London, where I lived in the early 1980s, to soak in the atmosphere for a novel I was near completing concerning that time in my life.  It was a mixture guaranteed to bring on a major attack of nostalgia.

The nostalgia was also because in the mid-1980s I had been a student at London University’s Institute of Education, to do a year of teacher-training after my PhD, to make sure I was employable in case my academic dreams failed to materialise. 

This meant I travelled from Hampstead to Bloomsbury weekdays, to the very modern building on Bedford Row, and had become familiar with the names of the streets and squares round about, often called ‘Bedford’, ‘Gordon’, ‘Gower’, ‘Tavistock’, ‘Woburn’, or ‘Russell’ after aristocrats who owned the land and property. 

 I had done most of the work for my PhD in the British Library when it resided in the British Museum on Great Russell Street, also in Bloomsbury, so it definitely felt like home ground.

So all those years before I had regularly been just a couple of streets away from what had been the Endsleigh Palace Hotel.  This had been on the south side of Endsleigh Gardens, on the corner of Gordon Street, now the Student Union of University College London (UCL).  As some of you may know, the University of London consists of colleges in the same way as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.  And so University College in London is just one of the university’s many colleges, as University College Oxford is one of Oxford University’s many colleges.  They probably did it to confuse tourists. 

Anyway, why am I telling you this?  Because a few years ago London University’s Institute of Education, which had always been treated like a college in its own right, was for some reason subsumed under the umbrella of UCL, which meant I was now an alumna of a college I had never visited in my life, with the possibility now of blagging my way into one of their buildings.

I had done my research online, studiously examined an A-Z, and thought I knew where I was going as I emerged from the nearest tube station into the warmth of an August morning.  It was good to be back in London.  I always feel the proverbial ‘buzz’ when I’m there, and my memories of living in that great city are virtually all extremely pleasant.  And Bloomsbury is definitely one of the more interesting sections, with its concentration of educational establishments and blue plaques commemorating the habitations of some of the most famous people in literary history – oh, and the odd economist and scientist, but I wasn’t as interested in them that day. 

ENDSLEIGH BUILDING

And there it was, the building itself, visited by thousands of students each year that probably would have no idea of the building’s history of care for the wounded after a terrible war a hundred years before, and that a world famous writer had been one of them.

Its appearance on the outside has not changed much from the days of the First World War when it was offered to the Red Cross as a hospital for wounded officers, then a research hospital for tropical diseases.

HOSPITAL SET UP (& 1915 SCANDAL)

As such, it was opened in 1915 with a hundred available beds.  It had its own operating theatre and X-Ray room. The War Office appointed Major L Haden Guest from the Royal Army Medical Corps as resident Military Commander.  At first all the nurses were trained professionals but that changed as the war went on.  There were also male medical orderlies who would valet the patients.  It was seen as important that those of officer status would not have “inexperienced girls” nursing them, perhaps young women of their own class that they might have to partner at future dances (this was literally the reason given)!  It  was a decision taken by a small non-medical organising committee led by Lord and Lady Williamson.

The fact that those making policy decisions for the hospital were not medically trained led to a huge scandal in 1915 when the committee sacked Miss Florence Tubbs the Head Matron, with no warning and no adequate explanation as to why.  All the nursing staff then left with her in protest and it took a while for the hospital to get back on an even keel.

It seems as though the committee viewed the level of discipline as too lax.  But my novelist’s mind is imagining all sorts or jealousies, romances, and intrigues beneath the surface!  However there was no stopping Miss Tubbs, who continued to gain support and obtained a role a mere two weeks later, running a hospital out in France, God bless her.

But all of this searching through the British Nursing Journal of 1915 certainly wasn’t a waste of time, even though C S Lewis wasn’t involved with the hospital yet.  I found myself fascinated by many of the articles for 1915, edited by Mrs Bedford Fenwick, and was astonished to read a news item about a nurse helping a man who had tried to commit suicide (by jumping out of a window – she had held onto his legs until help arrived!).  Attempted suicide was a crime then and so the poor man was being tried in the police court in Belfast.  But it was the name of the prosecuting solicitor that made me look twice.  It was none other than Mr A J Lewis, in other words, Albert James Lewis, C S Lewis’ father!  How amazing to find a link with Lewis when I wasn’t even expecting it! [1]

The Endsleigh Palace Hospital remained under the Red Cross until 1919 when it became a specialised research and treatment centre for Tropical Diseases. This was an extension of the treatment that had already been going on there during the War, especially with many soldiers returning from far flung posts in the British Empire.  So there were officers who had to be quarantined, even in Lewis’ time. [2]

NOTES

[1]  British Journal of Nursing, Vol 55, p75, 24 July 1915.

[2]  To see photos of another officer, 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Edwards, who was recovering from his wounds at the same hospital as Lewis, and who made a photographic record of his time there, see The National Army Museum website.  It includes a photo of the officer in a wheelchair in Endsleigh Gardens:  https://ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/second-lieutenant-cyril-edwards/

——————————

Part 2 of this study will begin with my tour and photos of the Endsleigh building itself.

Nov 21 2023

Remembering the Two Jacks: CS Lewis and John F Kennedy

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REMEMBERING THE TWO JACKS: CS LEWIS AND JOHN F KENNEDY

My diary is usually a blank since Covid and becoming a Carer, apart from the inspiring reminders to ‘Put bins out’ or ‘Do food order’.  But that wasn’t the case on 22 November 2013.

It was the fiftieth anniversary of the deaths of author and Professor C S Lewis and author and President John F Kennedy.  All Lewis fans know that he died on the same day as the terrible assassination of Kennedy, and so the fact didn’t get much publicity at the time as a result.

That any of these events should have had an effect on my diary entries for 2013 seems increasingly strange as the years go by.  But it caused an unlikely clash: I was supposed to be in two places at once.

Firstly, I was invited to be part of the celebration of C S Lewis’ life at the inclusion of a memorial to him in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey in London. This was later to be published as:

Secondly, I was invited to the celebration of the life of President Kennedy being held on the same day at the memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede in Surrey.

The Kennedy Memorial Trust

Back in 1984 I had been awarded a scholarship to Harvard by the Kennedy Memorial Trust, and it was this Trust that had been set up in 1965 to acknowledge the British people’s huge outpouring of grief at the President’s death.  The two parts were to be a “memorial in landscape and stone” at Runnymede and a ”living memorial” in the form of the Scholarship programme for around ten postgraduates a year to go from the UK to Harvard or MIT.  There are now over five hundred of us. [1]

Runnymede near Windsor was the scene of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, the ‘Great Charter of Liberty’ extracted by the barons from King John, which meant even the king was to be subject to the law. In a sense it was the beginning of parliamentary government and the inspiration for ideas of political liberty around the world, and it was here the official memorial stone to the President was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965.  The ceremony was attended by members of the Kennedy family, and the land that holds the memorial was granted to the American people in perpetuity.   The event was largely organised in 1965 by David Ormsby-Gore, Lord Harlech.  He had been one of Kennedy’s best friends and British Ambassador to America (and who, strangely enough, was to interview and then award me the Kennedy Scholarship in 1985 on the very day he too was to die tragically, in a car crash on the way home).

There is a video of the moving ceremony at Runnymede and the surrounding countryside: the walk through a wicket gate and then a wood and then the path to the seven ton block of Portland stone, which were all part of the memorial and designed to be like ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ for the visitor.

It reminded me of Addison’s Walk at Magdalen College Oxford where Lewis had his spiritual breakthrough in his talk with Tolkien and Dyson.

The two memorial stones are similar in some ways, including quotes from the men themselves, though on a different scale:

Lewis at Westminster Abbey

Of course I wanted to be at both events in 2013.  But since I’d been asked to be part of a panel discussing Lewis’s influence today, but would only have been a spectator at the Kennedy event, then it certainly made sense to be at Westminster Abbey.

Plus the fact that Lewis had influenced my spiritual and academic life to a far greater extent than Kennedy, although the scholarship to Harvard was fantastic and led me to spend four years in America as a result.

I tend to be reading books by or about CS Lewis most of the time, but by sheer coincidence I’ve just finished a different book that instead involved Kennedy, as it was the biography of his ‘forgotten’ sister Kathleen, known as ‘Kick’ [1]

Kick and Jack

When Kick was born in 1920, Jack was already two and a half.  They were to become best friends in a family of nine children and remained so throughout life, although Kick’s was to be cut short by tragedy even before her brother.  At her untimely death in a plane crash in 1948 she was already a widow.  She had married William ‘Billie’ Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, the son of the Duke of Devonshire, but Billie had been killed in heroic circumstances in the Second World War.  She really could have wandered around the magnificent Chatsworth House in Derbyshire and whispered ‘Of all this I might have been mistress’, like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

  It was partly through her social success with the English upper classes, backed up by their father being the American ambassador to Britain, that mean Jack Kennedy had access to the rich and powerful in the UK.  I was interested to read how pro-British he was, especially in his admiration of Churchill, for example, studying his speeches.

Irish Roots

Of course Kennedy was also keen to explore his Irish roots in several Irish counties.  The fact that his sister had married into the Devonshires also meant that they had invitations to their Irish property, Lismore Castle in County Waterford, which also would have belonged to Kick’s husband, had not tragedy intervened.  The extent to which the Kennedys had woven themselves into British life before the War really surprised me.  It also made me think more about CS Lewis’ Irish roots in Belfast and the ‘pull’ that Ireland has for the many millions who have ancestry there, including my own via a grandmother and her family, the MacNabs.  For both CSL and JFK, Ireland was ‘home’.

The Devonshires and Chatsworth

I now realise that this makes sense of a photo I once saw.  It was of President Kennedy’s Inaugural parade in January 1961, and there right on the front row was Deborah, the Duchess of Devonshire, right next to the President. The photo is in a book of Debo’s letters [2].

At the time everyone wondered who on earth this woman was.  But she, as Debo Mitford, had been great friends with Kick Kennedy when Kick had dated Billie, the Marquess of Hartington, and Debo had dated his younger brother Andrew, so they hung out as a foursome before the War.   When Billie was killed in 1944, Andrew inherited the title and therefore became the next Duke, and owner of Chatsworth and numerous other stunning properties.  If death hadn’t intervened for Kick in 1948, aged only 28, she would have been the ‘new’ Duchess, so in a sense Debo was a substitute for Kick at the Inauguration.

JFK had been so upset at the death of his sister that he only visited her grave at  Edensor near Chatsworth years later, just months before his own death.

The Two Jacks as Young Readers

But one of the things that surprised me the most was how similar the two Jacks had been in childhood and early youth, in the sense that both had been loners much of the time and voracious readers, and of course it was this that was to give them the edge in their subsequent careers, forming their main interests and pursuits.  I already knew about CSL’s reading habits, but was amazed at how frequently JFK had been ill and in hospital or bed bound whilst growing up and had therefore read so deeply.  Both had been deeply influenced by their boyhood reading on the history of Chivalry, for example.  And later on JFK’s father’s appointment as Ambassador to the Court of St James, and the political and aristocratic contacts that this provided in the UK, meant that Kennedy could as a young man meet the political and cultural heroes he had only encountered in his reading.

Christmas at Chatsworth

At Christmas I usually re-post my blogs about the wonderful Narnian ‘Christmas at Chatsworth’ event I also attended in 2013.   Of course the main focus of this is from the creative imagination of Jack Lewis, as each room at the stately home was magnificently decorated with characters and themes from the ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. 

But this year, as I look again at these Christmas photos, I will definitely be thinking of the Kennedy connection as well, of Kathleen and her younger brother Jack, who also wandered around Chatsworth in awe.  I will remember the future President, and Kick his sister who should have been a Duchess, and the events that forever link the two globally famous Irish Jacks, the Professor and the President.

NOTES

[1]  For Kennedy Memorial Trust, see https://www.kennedytrust.org.uk/

[2]  Paula Byrne, Kick: The True Story of JFK’s Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth (HarperCollins, 2016)

[3]  For Debo & JFK, see https://themitfordsociety.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/debo-jfk/

and (ed.) Charlotte Mosley, In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor (John Murray, 2008) re Inauguration.

For the short film about the Kennedy Memorial, see

https://www.kennedytrust.org.uk/display.aspx?id=1870&pid=0&tabId=230

For the Westminster Abbey Institute Symposium from 21 November 2013, see

Dec 31 2016

Emma-Jane Austin and the Brontë Birthplace

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Emma-Jane Austin and the Brontë Birthplace

In my novel ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’, Emma-Jane Austin visits the birthplace of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë in Thornton, West Yorkshire.  She is really keen to take photos for an exhibition at her place of work, Bromley House Library.  But it is also the weekend of Mother’s Day.  And the other members of her reading group, the Rotic Club, are keen to see Thornton too, since it is 200 years since the birth of Charlotte Brontë in 1816 and they are studying her masterpiece ‘Jane Eyre’ together.  So a quiet contemplative solo trip turns into a more social pilgrimage and a celebration for Emma’s mother and grandmothers who swell the numbers – and the fun!

Their journey begins at Nottingham train station with a disagreement over changes to the architecture of the victorian building

Nottingham train station

eg. have the lovely old art nouveau features been sufficiently enhanced in the recent refurbishment?

Art nouveau detail on station gates

Fortunately the train is on time and on the way to Bradford the women share some of the Brontë memorabilia and objects of interest to begin their study day.  A taxi takes them through thick snow to Thornton and their rented cottage on Market Street, the same street where the younger Brontës were born.

Brontë birthplace plaque

You can see more at www.bronte-country.com/thornton.html .  But the highlight was having lunch at ‘Emily’s’, the lovely bistro that is now situated in the Brontës’ former home,

‘Emily’s’ bistro and Brontë birthplace

‘Emily’s’ bistro, Thornton

and that still has the original fireplace and some of the furniture from their time.  You can see this, plus a map of a walking tour of Thornton called ‘Brontëland’, at www.delucaboutique.co.uk/about-us3.html.

‘Emily’s’

Fireplace at ‘Emily’s’

Over their meal, the women compare photos of Charlotte B from various biographies.  Of course there is the portrait of the three sisters by Branwell

Brontë sisters

and the photo on the cover of Lyndall Gordon’s excellent biography.

At ‘Emily’s’ cafe the women also enjoy looking at drawings of the Brontë family growing up as imagined by Joan Hassall in ‘The Brontë Story’ by Margaret Lane.

Margaret Lane’s biography of the Brontës

They also hand round a copy of ‘Charlotte in Love’ by Brian Wilks and have quite a lot to say about Charlotte’s own romance and marriage.

Charlotte’s love life by Brian Wilks

This means that they are not just delighted at being in the Brontës’ birthplace but also wonder about a trip to Haworth Parsonage together, where the sisters and their brother grew up and practised their art.  The parsonage has become a place of pilgrimage for Brontë fans even more than Thornton, and Emma’s mother and grandmothers have some surprises for the younger women in the form of catalogues and guidebooks from their own visits to Haworth in the 1980s.  One of Emma’s grandmas has a 1967 guide to Haworth bought there in 1981.

1980s guide

And Emma’s mother produces a booklet called ‘Sixty Treasures’ from 1988, which shows 60 items kept at the Parsonage.  The women exclaim over the photos of everyday household items and artistic materials used by the family, and particularly Charlotte’s tiny dress and boots and her wedding veil.

1980s guide

Rosanna, one of Emma’s reading group, gives them some very useful web addresses for keeping up with Brontë news and fandom, such as www.eyreguide.awardspace.co.uk and www.bronteblog.blogspot.com and www.bronteparsonage.blogspot.co.uk .

She also shows a picture of her favourite painting of the character Jane Eyre by Sigismond De Ivanowski from 1907.

Jane Eyre by De Ivanowski

One of Emma’s closest friends, Nattie, talks about reading the famous novel by Jean Rhys which imagines life for Rochester with his wife before they come to England and Bertha Mason descends into madness.  Nattie has also enjoyed the Persephone edition of Frances Towers’ collection of short stories ‘Tea with Mr Rochester’ from 1949.

Tea with Mr Rochester

The Persephone books are plain grey on the outside but all have beautiful endpapers inside and matching bookmarks that fit in with the era of the story.

Persephone pattern

To everyone’s amazement, even Emma’s grandmother ‘Grambo’, who has been less than enthusiastic about the trip and its theme so far, produces a memento from a visit to the Brontës’ home from many years before – an old toffee tin!

1980s souvenir tin

She had even filled it again with toffees for their journey home!  The tin is rather lovely – very Puginesque – with victorian photos of the main Brontë sites on each side.

Side of tin

The only member of Emma’s reading group who cannot be with them on the trip is Maria, the German teacher.  Instead she sends them something of interest to read that is referred to in ‘Jane Eyre’ and comes from her own culture.  This is an extract from Friedrich Schiller’s ‘Die Rauber’ or ‘The Robbers’ from 1782.  Not everyone appreciates having to read this!  (You can find it at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6782 )

Schiller’s ‘The Robbers’

Instead Emma suggests they read ‘Henry Brocken: his Travels and Adventures’ by Walter de la Mare from 1904, a fascinating story imagining visiting fictional characters as if they were real – for example Henry Brocken goes to see Rochester and Jane and their dog Pilot in their small house in a dark wood after their marriage.  (You can read this at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15432 )

This shows that re-imagining the characters from ‘Jane Eyre’ and writing new stories about them is nothing new.  My own novel, ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’ is in this category in a sense, as Emma-Jane Austin not only discusses Charlotte Brontë’s characters with her friends and family but feels she is meeting with them again in some form in her own life as she struggles to solve a murder mystery.  I am sure the Brontës would be amazed, and hopefully gratified, to know that we have still felt compelled to revisit their novels and even their birthplaces and homes in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

My latest novel ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’

You can read all about Emma-Jane and her friends in ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’ as an ebook on Kindle at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Mr-Rochester-Jeanette-Sears-ebook/dp/B01M28IXFD/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477392333&sr=1-3&keywords=jeanette+sears

Oct 28 2016

Emma-Jane Austin’s Library

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Emma-Jane Austin’s Library

The main character in my novel Murder and Mr Rochester works at Bromley House Library in the centre of Nottingham. Although Emma-Jane Austin is fictional, the library most definitely is not. It is a Regency gem on Angel Row, next to the Council House and the main Market Square. 2016 has been the library’s 200th birthday.

Nottingham Council House and Market Square

Nottingham Council House and Market Square

Here are some photos so you can appreciate more fully the beauty of the building where E-J is privileged to work, and also see the setting for the terrible crime that takes place there in the story.  (There are some hints here to help you solve the murder too!)

In Murder and Mr Rochester I mention that many people do not even know of the library’s existence. All you can see at first is a mysterious doorway in between the usual sort of city centre shops.  The entrance sits discretely between Barnardo’s and a newsagent’s. But if you ignore the traffic, erase the shops and look up you can begin to imagine the size and grandeur of the house itself.

Bromley House Library on busy Angel Row

Bromley House Library on busy Angel Row

Once inside, you are in a hallway that leads either to the back of the house

Doorway to garden

Doorway to garden

and a walled garden

View of garden from upstairs window

View of garden from upstairs window

or up the stairs to the main desk and reading room.

Librarians in regency costume at main desk for 200th anniversary

Librarians in regency costume at main desk for 200th anniversary

Of course, the most intriguing feature that strikes you as you enter the main part of the library is the spiral staircase.

Spiral staircase from side

Spiral staircase from side

It was not part of the original structure of the house when it was built for George Smith of the famous banking family in 1752 but was added along with the gallery.

Gallery above main reading room

Gallery above main reading room

Let’s follow Emma-Jane on her journey on that terrible afternoon of the (fictional) murder in the Library…

She is in the George Green Room sorting out books for the library’s Charlotte Brontë exhibition. (The room is named after the Nottingham mill owner and pioneering mathematician.)

Door of George Green Room

Door of George Green Room

After switching off the lights, she walks towards the gallery that runs around the main reading room.

Left hand side of gallery

Left hand side of gallery

She turns to the right and walks along the middle section of the gallery,

View of right hand side of gallery

View of right hand side of gallery

but then witnesses the ghastly ‘accident’ on the stairs to her left.

View of stairs from right side of gallery

View of stairs from right side of gallery

Here is a close-up of the brown wooden stairs (the colour is significant!)

Wooden stairs

Wooden stairs

and the stone hearth around the fireplace. (The modern radiators in the library are necessary to control the heat and humidity more accurately than a gas or real fire.)

Fireplace hearth with stone edging

Fireplace hearth with stone edging

There is a gap between the bottom of the spiral staircase and the fireplace that will be of significance…

Bottom of stairs and hearth

Bottom of stairs and hearth

Here is the longcase clock that chimes loudly early one morning and scares Emma-Jane when she is in the library on her own, trying to solve the mystery.

Longcase clock

Longcase clock

Bromley House Library really did have a display of Charlotte Brontë’s books in the Spring of 2016 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth, which is featured in the novel.

Display of Charlotte Bronte books

Display of Charlotte Bronte books

And for the 200th birthday of the library itself in April 2016, which in the story Emma-Jane is looking forward to, the real librarians held a birthday party in regency costume!

Librarians in regency costume for 200th anniversary

Librarians in regency costume for 200th anniversary

You can be a member of the library even if you don’t live in Nottingham – a ‘Country Member’ pays half the usual subscription fee.

Do have a look at the Bromley House website at www.bromleyhouse.com. It has more photos and some short films that really give you a feel of the place. There are many more beautiful rooms, old and new, to explore.

No wonder Emma-Jane Austin in my story feels very lucky to work there – apart from the murder, of course!

My latest novel 'Murder and Mr Rochester'

My latest novel ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’

You can buy Murder and Mr Rochester by Jeanette Sears on Kindle at www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com.

Oct 28 2016

Emma-Jane Austin and The Tunnel

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Emma-Jane Austin and the Tunnel

In my novel Murder and Mr Rochester, the heroine Emma-Jane Austin discovers a shortcut in the centre of Nottingham called ‘The Tunnel’.  It is one of the most interesting architectural features of Nottingham but is now largely hidden from view.

Access to hidden Tunnel

Access to hidden Tunnel

It is tends to just be called The Tunnel, or if one wishes to be more helpful and accurate, The Park Tunnel.

The Tunnel in Nottingham

The Tunnel in Nottingham

It echoes the days when Victorian engineers were blasting great big holes through anything that stood in the way of modern transport. This time it was in 1855 and was a way to gain a shortcut from Derby Road in the centre of Nottingham through to the new residential Park Estate owned by the fifth Duke of Newcastle.

It provides another fascinating revelation of the huge area of sandstone rock and caves that form the foundation of the centre of the city.

Tree and the sandstone Castle Rock

Tree and the sandstone Castle Rock

The Dukes of Newcastle were no strangers to this geological formation as their castle stood on the highest section of sandstone which was pockmarked with entrances to strange tunnels and caves beneath.

Nottingham Castle on Castle Rock

Nottingham Castle on Castle Rock

The job of designing the man-made tunnel and much of the new estate was given to the fifth Duke’s surveyor, Thomas Chambers Hine (1813-1899).

Thomas Chambers Hine

Thomas Chambers Hine

He also designed the layout of the roads and many of the magnificent houses, as well as having approval of other intended house plans in order to maintain the estate’s architectural integrity. Unfortunately the Tunnel was obsolete almost as soon as it was built. The gradient was slightly too difficult for horse-drawn carriages. Also other roads were built at around the same time that meant the Tunnel was no longer necessary.

Steps in central part of Tunnel

Steps in central part of Tunnel

But it remains an eccentric and hidden part of Nottingham’s history. And, despite electric lighting and an opening for natural light in the middle,

Artificial and natural light in the Tunnel

Artificial and natural light in the Tunnel

it can still be scary at night, as Emma-Jane Austin finds out in my murder mystery novel Murder and Mr Rochester.  Not a place where you want to bump into strangers in the dark…

My novel 'Murder and Mr Rochester'

My novel ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’

Sep 17 2016

The Kilns – What Was and Could Have Been

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The Kilns – What Was and Could Have Been

As a fan of C S Lewis, I love it when bits of Narnia or other elements from the life of Lewis weave their way into my everyday life.

Recently a friend gave me a special treat. It was a lunch out in the countryside nearby to celebrate finishing the final draft of my latest novel. It was to be at the Bottle Kiln in West Hallam, an unexpectedly beautiful place in a small Derbyshire village [1].

The Bottle Kiln

The Bottle Kiln

It was also unexpectedly crowded. No doubt the school holidays contributed to some extent, but in retrospect I can see that the quality of the place drew people like the proverbial magnet and we were lucky to get the last parking space at lunch time. Plus the weather couldn’t have been more gorgeous or the sky more blue.

Bottle Kiln and garden

Bottle Kiln and garden

This meant that my first view of the old kiln was doubly delightful as it rose above the surrounding brick buildings that now house a café and the sort of shops that translate me into retail heaven.

But, of course, the kiln itself was bound to remind me of C S Lewis’ home, the Kilns, in Oxfordshire, so I was hoping to find interesting resonances. At the Bottle Kiln there is an intimate garden at the back where people can eat their food and chat to friends but that is also quiet enough for contemplation.

photo 27

It is called a Japanese tea garden and I was immediately struck by the effort taken to make a tranquil space that was both friendly but that encouraged people to just stop and be quiet for a while.

Bottle Kiln Garden

Bottle Kiln Garden

We certainly couldn’t ignore the fact that this kiln had once produced bricks. They were everywhere, not just in the construction of the kiln itself and the outbuildings but also beautifully laid out in systematic patterns for paths. Even the tabletops in the restaurant were made of bricks and mortar. The whole place has been rescued and renovated with very creative and artistic touches.

Garden tiles

Garden tiles

The various chambers around the central kiln are now four selling areas for Gifts, Home and Accessories, Handmade items, and the Card Room, with the restaurant on the other side.

Central chamber of kiln

Central chamber of kiln

The design motif throughout was one of my favourites – Orla Kiely’s iconic leaf pattern. The predominant colour of green blended well with the brickwork and reflects the green ethos of so many organic and recycled items on sale, all of which were laid out with the precision and good taste of a magazine shoot.

Orla Keily wallpaper

Orla Kiely wallpaper

My friend knew I would love this, and I did!

Contemporary pots on sale

Contemporary pots on sale

It was also interesting to stand in the middle of the building and look up – to see right through to the sky above through the narrow outlet of the kiln’s original chimney.

Bottle Kiln Chimney

Bottle Kiln Chimney

It formed such a contrast to the vibrant life and colour all around me. For the brick flue was huge, dark, bleak and silent with the longest cobwebs I’ve ever seen draped from the top, like a spider’s dusty version of the hanging gardens of Babylon. Looking up at the sky, I felt as though I was in a tunnel again – the feeling I’d had for the last few months while writing my novel – head down, prioritising work, not seeing people, utterly concentrated and largely isolated. That’s not to say it’s been a negative experience – I’m an introvert and I love it! But one can’t do everything in life, and when I’m concentrating on a book, other parts of my life (like going out to restaurants with friends) just tend not to happen (like my blogging too, for that matter)!

The Tunnel in Nottingham

The Tunnel in Nottingham

This time there’s the added factor that a massive tunnel in the centre of Nottingham – just called ‘The Tunnel’ – features at the beginning and end of my novel (which is called ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’ in case you were beginning to wonder). The Nottingham Tunnel is a huge Victorian construction blasted out of sandstone. This has often been in my mind as an image for the writing process – one enters the darkness of the imagination to construct an alternative reality in prose, which can feel like blasting one’s way through rock to find what’s on the other side. Then one day it’s all over and you emerge blinking into the daylight of normal life again. And friends take you out to lunch…

The light at the end of the Bottle Kiln’s towering chimney reminded me of this – I’m at least out of the tunnel of the final draft of my novel at any rate. I couldn’t help remarking to my friend how marvellous it would have been if the Kilns that used to be next to C S Lewis’ house of the same name had survived and could have been refurbished just like the Bottle Kiln here.

Original plan of Bottle Kiln

Original plan of Bottle Kiln

The home that Lewis bought with his brother and Mrs Moore in 1930 that is now a study centre would be enhanced by such a development next door, especially if still surrounded by the fields and wild countryside that so attracted the Lewis brothers. The original kilns in Headington in Oxfordshire could have become a similar visitor centre with beautiful shops, a café (or pub!), and a garden next to the lake and part of the nature reserve that’s still there. What a ‘go to’ spot that would have been for visitors to the area, and an even greater pull for The Kilns’ and the C S Lewis Foundation’s attempt to stimulate further interest in this great author and teacher. Instead of a small house in the middle of a modern housing estate, my mind’s eye could now see a much larger enterprise, with the chimneys of the old kilns visible for miles, like a sign, like the towers of a cathedral calling out to visitors to come and find.

Original Bottle Kiln

Original Bottle Kiln

I can imagine Lewis would have approved of a refurbished set of Kilns in the countryside next to his house where people could come and eat and drink with friends, talk about art and literature, contemplate nature, de-stress, and generally have good fellowship together or mediate on their own in God’s good creation. That was exactly what I was able to do with my friend. I could just imagine the Inklings having a drink and a meal here together, discussing their latest work in the restaurant or garden, as we were able to do.

Bottle Kiln restaurant

Bottle Kiln restaurant

Even the retail side of my experience was a blessing. I was delighted to find the very things I needed to buy – some kilner storage jars for the kitchen (plus they were about half the price of shops in the centre of town)!

Glassware

Glassware

But to go back to the very centre of the building, not only did the opening at the top of the kiln itself remind me of a tunnel, it brought to mind the experience of Jill Pole in C S Lewis’ ‘The Silver Chair’ when she and Puddleglum and Eustace have been in the dark Underland for what seems like ages. Then at last Jill sees a glimpse of light up above and can now emerge, with the help of friends pulling her out, into the heart of Narnia again. Then, what should I see in the restaurant at the Bottle Kiln after our meal, but a little bit of Narnia in the form of a children’s book on the newspaper and magazine stand. There, along with the Tatler and the Times, were a couple of picture books on the bottom shelf within the reach of children. I must admit I hadn’t seen this version of a Narnia story before, but there on the cover were none other than Puddleglum and Jill Pole in a version of part of Lewis’ The Silver Chair! [2]

Version of 'The Silver Chair'

Version of ‘The Silver Chair’

I love it when this sort of Lewisian synchronicity/serendipity happens. It seemed to affirm my experience of the light at the end of my own personal tunnel-cum-kiln.

And this linking of tunnels and kilns is not as fanciful as it might sound. Yesterday I looked at kilns on the web to see if there was anything else of interest. Well, there is even a ‘Tunnel Kiln’, apparently! And both the kilns next to Lewis’ house and the Bottle Kiln I visited this week were both built in the 1920s. There were two brick kilns and a brick drying barn about 100 yards away from Lewis’ house which was built in 1922. The area used to be known as the Clay Hills when the brick industry flourished there in the late 19th century.

But a glance at the Ashmolean Museum’s website revealed a much more ancient heritage for this area of Oxfordshire in its Archaeology section. Here we’re told that “large numbers of pottery kilns have been excavated in south and east Oxford. The numbers have suggested to some archaeologists an “industrial zone”, coincidentally but interestingly centred on the modern industrial zone around Cowley, but also stretching to Headington, Rose Hill, Littlemore, Sandford and as far south as Betinsfield. The kilns cluster around the Roman road…’ [3]. These were developed in the early 2nd century AD to provide good quality domestic ware, mostly for dining and kitchen storage, using the pure white clay of Shotover Hill.

However, these early kilns fell into disuse when the Romans withdrew from Britain in the early 5th century and it was only in the Victorian era that serious pottery and brick production began in this area again. But we can still see some of that early Roman homeware from the Oxford Potteries in the Rome gallery on the ground floor of the Ashmolean Museum.

Roman pots in the Ashmolean

Roman pots in the Ashmolean

Did Lewis ever look at any of these old pots and reflect that they could have been made just a few yards from his home 1600 years before? And how interesting that Lewis is buried at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry – named after the stone quarry there that provided some of the stone for the building of the Oxford colleges.

So, two of the main places most associated with C S Lewis are named, not after any high-flown literary or romantic themes, but after two of Oxfordshire’s oldest and most down to earth industries – the Kilns and a Quarry.

Model of bottle kiln

Model of bottle kiln

Perhaps my own envisionings of the imaginative process of writing as hewing through rock, or journeying through a dark tunnel, or trying to find the sky through a dusty and cobwebby chimney of clay bricks, are also sufficiently down to earth images and experience on which to build a creative literary life.  The kiln can become a model for how I think of my work.

Inside model of bottle kiln

Inside model of bottle kiln

And if that’s whetted your appetite to read the novel I’ve been mentioning – yes, it’s published now and you can find it on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Mr-Rochester-Jeanette-Sears-ebook/dp/B01M28IXFD/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477392333&sr=1-3&keywords=jeanette+sears

My latest novel 'Murder and Mr Rochester'

My latest novel ‘Murder and Mr Rochester’

NOTES

1] You can see more at www.bottlekiln.co.uk.

2] Hiawyn Oram, The Giant Surprise: a Narnia Story (HarperCollins, London, 2005) based on C S Lewis, The Silver Chair  (Geoffrey Bles, London, 1953).

3] From www.ashmolean.org/ash/britarch/roman-oxon/oxon-pottery.html, written by Susan Walker, 15 Dec 2011.

Jul 30 2015

The Dragon-defeating Saint of Sark

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The Dragon-defeating Saint of Sark

On a walk round the island of Sark last week I saw a dragon.

This was most unexpected. It was red and huge, as opposed to great and green (Tolkien fans will know what I mean) and made of metal and was standing, rather incongruously, outside a bicycle repair shop. Of course I had to take its photo.

Sark Dragon

Sark Dragon

What was it doing there? Was the bicycle repair man a Tolkien fan or was there some other reason for its presence?

Perhaps I should be used to meeting dragons on my holidays by now. Last year it was seeing the Tatzelwurm at Aare Gorge in Switzerland and the story of St Beatus defeating the dragon at Interlaken that took me by surprise (see my blog ‘In Tolkien’s Footsteps in Switzerland’ for the details and pictures). This year I was touring the Channel Islands off the coast of France. After exploring Jersey and Guernsey I was now to spend a day on the tiny island of Sark which I had longed to see for years.

Arriving on Sark

Arriving on Sark

Its otherworldly reputation – a feudal society with no cars or planes allowed – had made it fascinating to me. Plus there had been the TV series called ‘An Island Parish’ about the churches on Sark, that showed the small tight-knit community there all year round, which seemed quaint and charming, and to have preserved traditions and a neighbourliness that we have lost on the mainland.

Sark Methodist church

Sark Methodist church

It all seemed to promise a trip back in time. So I was perhaps expecting saints, but not dragons.

A few minutes in the tiny building housing the Societe Sercquaise put me right.

La Societe Sercquaise Heritage Centre

La Societe Sercquaise Heritage Centre

Here was a pamphlet with a dragon on the cover – a dragon with a bearded monk standing next to it who was holding it on a leash made from his priest’s stole, embellished with a cross. Apparently this was Saint Magloire, none other than the patron saint of Sark. Like England’s St George, he too had slain a dragon, though in his role as a monk rather than a knight. And as with St George, the legends about him are varied and historically confused, but exciting. According to this short history by Martin Remphry [1], Saint Magloire (or Maglorius) came to Sark around 565 AD to establish a Christian monastic community. He had been given half of the island by Loyesco of Neutstrie in Brittany, in return for curing him from leprosy. The half of the island belonging to the saint was so blessed in the fertility of its crops and fishing and animal life that it began to cause trouble with the natives on the other half of the island who were not so blessed! Magloire, who may have been Welsh or Breton, seems to have that closeness to the natural world typical of the Celtic saints, and is even called a nephew of King Arthur. He performed many miracles, such as healings and saving people from drowning. He began schools for the islanders and became the Bishop of Dol.

But where does the dragon come in? Cue a photo of the dragon from another angle, looking almost cute next to a matching basket of flowers…

Sark dragon again

Sark dragon again

Apparently Magliore had already slain a dragon on Jersey before he even came to Sark! The locals were so pleased they gave him land (he seems to have had a way with real estate) and he established an oratory there. Remphry says there there are few details but speculates that Magliore might have used the same method of dragon-slaying as another Breton saint – St Paul Aurelian. He defeated a 60 foot serpent on the island of Batz by tying his stole round its neck and luring it off a cliff and into the sea. And Magliore’s cousin, St Sampson, did the same thing in Cornwall.

A section of the medieval monastery on Sark still exists next to the Seigneurie, the home of the ruler of Sark. Unfortunately I did not get to see this as collapsing over an ice-cold lemonade in the 90 degree heat in the cafe there took precedence instead.

Seigneurie gardens cafe

Seigneurie gardens cafe

Taken around the island on the back of a horse-drawn cart under a blazing sun

Transport on Sark

Transport on Sark

is probably the hottest and most sunburnt I’ve ever been, and the nearest I got to meeting a fire-breathing dragon. Probably a good thing, as I didn’t have my stole on me at the time…

 

NOTES

[1] Martin Remphry, ‘Saint Magliore, Patron Saint of Sark’, La Societe Sercquaise, Sark, 2010.

Dec 23 2013

A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part Three

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A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part Three

Stairway

Stairway

The next staircase contained a hint that a great battle had been fought between good and evil in Narnia, all revolving around the death of Aslan. There began to be military pennants and flags, knights in armour and more small lion toys as clues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Narnian victory banquet

Narnian victory banquet

But the Great Dining Room was spread for a phenomenal banquet, with beautiful Christmas trees.

Van Dyck painting

Van Dyck painting

There were displays of fruit and candles on every table beneath old master paintings.

Side table display

Side table display

It was set to celebrate the victory of Aslan and the Narnian army over the White Witch and her evil hordes.

High King Peter's chair

High King Peter’s chair

Each chair at the table had a name tag showing which guest was to sit there. Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy (now called Kings and Queens of Narnia) had a chair with their names plus the gifts they had been given by Father Christmas that had helped them win the battle (except Edmund who had not been there to meet him). What could top this?

Aslan

Aslan

Meeting Aslan himself, of course. This was surprisingly low key. As you can see from the photo, the lighting was not good nor the setting. Anyway, it was great to see small children (and adults) getting their photos taken with him and not seeming to mind. I suppose there was something appropriate about even the resurrected Aslan being humble and approachable, as opposed to the White Witch posing with her throne under a disco glitter ball.

Sculpture Gallery

Sculpture Gallery

Those of you familiar with the Kiera Knightley ‘Pride and Prejudice’ can perhaps remember the Sculpture gallery at Chatsworth that she walked through contemplating the statues supposedly at Pemberley. The gallery is now transformed into Cair Paravel with striped tents and banners with lions rampant.

Children's requests to Santa

Children’s requests to Santa

There were smaller Christmas trees made of paper tags on which children had written their requests to Father Christmas.

Thrones at Cair Paravel

Thrones at Cair Paravel

And children were able to sit on thrones on a dais and be crowned as High King Peter, King Edmund, Queen Susan and Queen Lucy. When I was there it was lovely to see a boy in a wheelchair crowned with his brothers.

Marble lion

Marble lion

Of course it was hardly necessary to add a figure of a great lion to the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth as the room finishes with two enormous lions like bookends

Marble lion

Marble lion

on either side of the huge doorway as one leaves.

Chatsworth shop

Chatsworth shop

It was rather strange to suddenly be in the shop, even if there were C S Lewis’ Narnia books on sale. There were some toys for children too to help them play out the story at home. I heard a small boy requesting some pieces of plastic armour from his mother but she replied: “You can have a sword or a shield but we can’t afford both!” That must have been a let-down after all the excitement so far! I already had the Narnia books of course, so I contented myself with a book on the grand houses used in Jane Austen film and TV adaptations – oh, and some chocolate.

Tea rooms and Orangery

Tea rooms and Orangery

After that I went with my family to the tea rooms

Stable block

Stable block

and we managed to stagger around a few more shops in the stable block and down to the magnificent Emperor fountain, blowing into thousands of droplets in the strong cold wind.

Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House

Looking at the house itself from the garden we were able to see that the window frames had been painted gold since our last visit. This apparently weathers better than ordinary paint and is cheaper for them in the long run – just a little household tip for you there! It was also noticeable as we left how many of the trees were leaning to one side because of the high winds on the peaks. We left before it got dark and there didn’t seem to be any flaming torches this time anyway. But the whole trip had been exhilarating and even joyful. I was glad to be able to share it with some of my family and I wish I could have taken all my family and friends.

Goodbye to Chatsworth

Goodbye to Chatsworth

I hope these photos and commentary give you a taste of what it was like and a desire to experience again the excitement of C S Lewis’ Narnia this Christmas and the glory of the victory over evil and the salvation of humankind as depicted in the story of Aslan and Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.

IMG_4739

Merry Christmas!

Have a very blessed Christmas!

Dec 23 2013

A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part Two

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A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part Two

One of the most amazing things about visiting Chatsworth House this week was just the fact that we were allowed to take photos. Anyone who has been round the great stately homes of England will know that this is very unusual, so it felt like a triple privilege being able to take photos of such marvellous architecture and works of art, along with the staggering amount of special Christmas decor plus the magical Narnian theme.

Painted Hall

Painted Hall

A glory of Chatsworth even under normal conditions is the enormous Painted Hall with the main staircase. Virtually every inch is covered with murals and carving and sculpture. Those of us walking around the house had already begun to gasp as we entered each room, but this next one really took our breath away.

White Witch

White Witch

The White Witch had certainly commandeered the best spot, looking magnificent at the top of the main stairs with a cloak flowing down,

Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight

with the addition of a few cheeky boxes of turkish delight.

White Witch

White Witch

She was standing next to a very impressive throne that looked suspiciously like the silver chair.

Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight

Turkish delight was definitely a theme here, even nestling under glass domes on side tables.

View from balcony

View from balcony

It was possible to view the whole scene from a balcony on the upper floor and get an even more amazing perspective.

Tops of trees

Tops of trees

Here one could see the top of the gigantic Christmas trees.

Detail of decorations

Detail of decorations

Apparently it took the staff a week of solid work to decorate the house. I’m surprised it didn’t take a lot longer.

Aslan on the Stone Table

Aslan on the Stone Table

Even though the scene with the White Witch was impressive, the next scene, though on a smaller scale, was even more astonishing. We were suddenly confronted with a life-size Aslan on the Stone Table. He was bound with ropes in the classic pose and there were small white mice moving around on him as if helping to free him. They were animatronic of course but it looked surprisingly realistic. But the most surprising thing was that Aslan’s chest was moving up and down gently as if he had begun to breathe again and was returning to life. I don’t know if they didn’t want to present him as dead so as not to upset children or if this was a genuine theological statement! Of course Aslan, the true King, has given his life in exchange for Edmund, to rescue him from the White Witch.  I could have stared at this for ages but of course one has to keep moving and let other people see. The scene fitted remarkably well with the backdrop of the room chosen and felt august and solemn.

Veiled lady

Veiled lady

Next a statue of a veiled lady reminded me of the women weeping at the tomb of Jesus, and Susan and Lucy mourning Aslan, before they know of his victory over death.

Tiny lion clues

Tiny lion clues

All the way round the house were small lion toys to give the children clues to various questions for them for the quiz on the guide.

Lion Christmas tree

Lion Christmas tree

Now a whole tree decorated with lots of lion toys seemed to be giving the hint as well that perhaps the witch was not about to have everything her way and Aslan was on the move again…

 

Part Three concerns the victory of Aslan and the enthronement of the four children at Cair Paravel.

Dec 21 2013

A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part One

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A Narnian Christmas at Chatsworth House – Part One

Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House

A few years ago I had such a marvellous time at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire seeing their Christmas decorations and nativity that I vowed to go again someday. Not only is the house one of the most beautiful in Britain, the huge Christmas trees in every room, the vintage swags on the staircases and fireplaces, and the nativity with real animals in the stableyard, meant that it had been an unforgettable treat, plus flaming torches lighting our way as we drove away in the dark. The house is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and dates back to the sixteenth century, but it has also posed as Darcy’s Pemberley for ‘Pride and Prejudice’ in both the Keira Knightley/Matthew MacFadyen film version and now the TV adaptation of P D James’ ‘Death Comes to Pemberley’, so catnip for Jane Austen fans. And when they announced that this year the Christmas decorations would be themed around C S Lewis’ ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, it was obvious that this was the year to go to Chatsworth again. I have spoken on Lewis and Narnia at various venues and have seen several excellent and creative attempts to decorate places to give a Narnia ‘experience’, so what would such an immense house with so many resources be able to offer?

Chatsworth House So this week we made the hour’s drive from Nottingham to Bakewell in the Derbyshire Peak District. There was the obligatory ‘Brideshead’ moment as we approached the enormous building from the edge of the estate and saw the building’s magnificence at a distance. As you enter the Chatsworth itself you are greeted by an Air Raid Warden and scenes and music from the Second World War. This is because ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ of course is set at the beginning of the War and, as I’m sure you know, concerns the four Pevensie children who were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the bombing – very appropriate for Chatsworth as apparently a girls’ school called Penrhos College was evacuated here at that time too in reality, although sometimes it was so cold that their hot water bottles froze at night!

Christmas tree with London buses The first two Christmas trees that greet you in the entrance way are decorated with little London buses and there is a desk with 1940s items such as an old phone and newspaper which reminded me of Lewis’ desk at the Kilns. But then one walks through a doorway and into a short passage lined with fur coats and then… into Narnia!

Narnian Winter

Narnian Winter

A long corridor with spectacular white and silver and frosty trees and baubles, all leading up to –

The Lamp post

The Lamp post

what else – the lamp post. Small white furry woodland creatures are hiding in the undergrowth and one is lulled into a false sense of security when suddenly…

Maugrim the Wolf

Maugrim the Wolf

several enormous menacing wolves appear, one being Maugrim himself with the notice of the arrest of Mr Tumnus on the orders of the ‘Queen’.

Stone fountain

Stone fountain

There was an area for children to dress up in long dresses and furs and cloaks as characters from the story. This overlooked an inner courtyard with a fountain and animals that had been ‘turned’ into stone to show the witch’s power in Narnia at that point.

Trees in Chapel

Trees in Chapel

We then walked into the chapel, in itself a stunning place for worship filled with magnificent murals and statues and two of the biggest Christmas trees I’ve ever seen indoors. Christmas carols were playing in the background and people were standing around in awe at the sight.

Chairs in chapel

Chairs in chapel

The tapestry chairs on either side reminded me of the thrones for the kings and queens of Charn, waiting to be awoken by Digory striking the bell – not perhaps a happy recollection but by this point even the ‘ordinary’ furnishings and carvings in Chatsworth were taking on a Narnian significance.

 

 

 

 

Tea with Mr Tumnus

Tea with Mr Tumnus

We then turned left into the Oak Room, renamed Tumnus Towers, and found ourselves in Mr Tumnus’ living room all set out for tea. His kettle was whistling on the fire and a book entitled ‘Is Man a Myth?’ lay on the table, the cover photo looking suspiciously like the Duke of Devonshire! The man playing Mr Tumnus was probably rather old for the part, if he’ll forgive me saying, but did have magnificent furry trousers. But having tea with Mr Tumnus here was very appropriate as it was the Duchess of Devonshire in the 18th century who invented the habit of taking afternoon tea as a stop gap to tide one over as dinners were so late in the evening.  There were two trees in his room, both decorated with gingerbread men. I had read a newspaper account beforehand of what would be in this Narnian experience so I had been expecting Mr Tumnus, but not what we could see from the next room –

 

Mr and Mrs Beaver

Mr and Mrs Beaver

– right into the living room of Mr and Mrs Beaver! She is at her sewing machine and he is scrubbing his back in a bath in front of the fire (not sure where they got this from, but it was funny)! The walls made of logs was a nice touch and there were packets on a table such as wood chips for them to chew on and ‘incisor paste’ for cleaning their teeth, the old-fashioned packaging adding to a 1940s feel.

Father Christmas' sleigh

Father Christmas’ sleigh

One then walked out into the Chapel Corridor and was confronted by Father Christmas’ sleigh. Unfortunately he was not there in person (I probably would have fainted by this point) –

Father Christmas' reindeer

Father Christmas’ reindeer

– but the two reindeer were animatronic and moving as if they were about to eat the carrot and mince pie left out for them by children. Apparently each year, for over a hundred years, Chatsworth has a held Christmas party for the children of their estate workers during which Father Christmas really does come down the chimney! If we hadn’t realised it already, it was now obvious that here they can do things on a much bigger scale than the rest of us. And we were only at the beginning of our Narnian Christmas journey…

 

Part Two concerns Aslan, the White Witch and Turkish Delight.

Part Three concerns the victory of Aslan and the enthronement of the children at Cair Paravel.