A POETIC STRETCH OF CORNISH COAST: TREBETHERICK/SIR JOHN BETJEMAN

When the former British Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman was a boy, he and his family used to holiday on the majestic north Cornish coast at Trebetherick between Polzeath and Daymer Bay.  These holidays evidently made a lasting impression, because he later bought a house in the area, and when he died in 1984 he was buried in the Church of St Enodoc to the south of Trebetherick.  

Daymer Bay and Trebetherick Point - geograph.org.uk - 7916. Photo by Stephen Dawson, via Wikimedia Commons.

This gorgeous part of Cornwall was described in detail in his poem Trebetherick, in which he describes family picnics - “sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea” - and the vagaries of the weather - “rain and blizzard, sea and spray”.  Shilla Mill gets a mention, now a campsite at Polzeath, as does Greenaway, a beach to the south-west of Polzeath.

Map of the area.

A BIRK OF A WORK: ROBERT BURNS/ABERFELDY

 I often feel the need for a special dictionary when reading the works of Scotland’s most celebrated poet, Robert Burns.  When I came across The Birks of Aberfeldy I had no idea what a birk was.  Turns out it is Gaelic for birch trees, and these are the trees overlooking the Falls of Moness on the outskirts of Aberfeldy, which provided the inspiration for this poem. There is a woodland walk taking in the scene, complete with a statue of Burns.

The Birks of Aberfeldy, Robert Burns statue - geograph.org.uk - 1195252. Photo by Bill Clark, via Wikimedia Commons.

The poem invites a “bony lassie” to go to the birks and enjoy the “flowery braes” (steep banks) and “chrystal streamlets”, “the hoary cliffs…crown’d wi’ flowers”, “fragrant spreading shaws” (hawthorn), and the “burnie” (stream) pouring “white o’er the linns (ravines).  

Aberfeldy is a small town on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire.  As well as the Burns connection, the town’s main claim to fame is the beautiful old stone bridge dating from 1733 and built by British Army officer General Wade. Near the bridge is the Black Watch Monument consisting of a tall cairn topped by a statue of Private Farquhar Shaw dressed in the uniform of the Black Watch Regiment.

Map of the area.

Wade's Bridge

LITERARY PUBS: THE STUBBING WHARF, HEBDEN BRIDGE

 

The poet Ted Hughes was born in Mytholmroyd in Calderdale (last seen in my post about Happy Valley), and he married the American poet Sylvia Plath.  In Hughes’ collection ‘Birthday Letters’ he recalls the day he and Sylvia sat in the bar of The Stubbing Wharf by the Rochdale Canal on the outskirts of the nearby Hebden Bridge.  They were arguing about where they would live, and Hughes paints a gloomy picture of the pub, describing “the gummy dark bar”, and its rainsodden surrounding with “the fallen-in grave of its history”, “a gorge of ruined mills and abandanoned chapels” and “the fouled nest of the Industrial Revolution that had flown”.  They ended up living in London.

Stubbing Wharf (3617762016). Photo by Tim Green, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The Stubbing Wharf, established as a pub in 1810, is still going strong today, offering real ales and good pub food in an appealing canaside environment, just a short walk along the canal towpath from Hebden Bridge.  A short distance from the pub towards Hebden Bridge there are boat trips available on traditional canal barges.

Map of the area.

A MAJOR POET CELEBRATES A MINOR RIVER: RIVER DUDDON, CUMBRIA/WORDSWORTH

When a river forms the subject of a work of poetry, more often than not it is a major river.  The Thames, the Wye and other famous British rivers have been the subject of famous poems over the years.  So it is slightly puzzling that Wordsworth chose the obscure River Duddon as the subject of a series of sonnets.  It appears he may have found encouragement in a letter written by Robert Burns to a fellow poet, which Wordsworth read and quoted from frequently.  In the letter Burns asserted that the likes of the Thames, Seine et al had already been done to death in poetry, so better to seek inspiration “adown some trottin burn’s meander”. 

Be that as it may, an obvious reason for choosing the River Duddon is that it is close to where Wordsworth was living, in his beloved Lake District.  The birth of the river is described thus: “Child of the clouds ! remote from every taint//Of sordid industry thy lot is cast”.  The verse goes on for page after page, with sections headed ‘Flowers’, ‘The Stepping-Stones’, ‘The Fairy Chasm’, right up to the ‘Conclusion’ numbered XXXIII.  In short, no-one can accuse Wordsworth of short-changing the River Duddon.

Stepping Stone near Crosby Bridge, River Duddon - geograph.org.uk - 2452540. Photo by Tom Richardson, via Wikimedia Commons.

The River Duddon flows through the south-western part of the Lake District, passing the villages of Seathwaite and Duddon Bridge before widening out to an estuary, joining the sea between Haverigg and Barrow-in-Furness.

Map of the area.

LITERARY PUBS: THE BLACK LION HOTEL, NEW QUAY, CEREDIGION

 New Quay, a charming seaside village on Cardigan Bay, is famous for its dolphins, which can often be seen without even getting in a boat.  Another claim to fame is the fact that the notorious Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin spent a short time living there from 1944-1945 in a bungalow called Majoda, and that he based some of the characters in Under Milk Wood on people from New Quay.  While he no doubt visited most if not all the hostelries in the area, the Black Lion Hotel was a favourite of his.  The hotel featured in ‘Quite Early One Morning’, in which it was described as a pink-washed pub “waiting for Saturday night as an over-jolly girl waits for sailors”. 

The incident which led up to Dylan and his wife Caitlin moving out of New Quay started in the Black Lion.  William Killick, the husband of Dylan and Caitlin's neighbour and friend Vera, and a Captain fresh from a mission behind enemy lines in Greece, had a violent encounter with Dylan Thomas in the Black Lion and later attacked Majoda.  Dylan and Caitlin, no doubt unnerved by the incident, moved out of New Quay shortly afterwards.

The Black Lion still operates as a hotel, and serves decent meals to both residents and non-residents.  It is blessed with a large garden with lovely views over the bay.  Inside there is an array of photos and Dylan Thomas memorabilia.  Visitors to New Quay can follow a  Dylan Thomas Trail which includes both the Black Lion and Majoda.  In 2008 a film was released called The Edge of Love about Dylan and Caitlin and the Killicks starring Matthew Rhys, Cillian Murphy, Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller.  Many of the scenes from the film were shot in New Quay.

The Black Lion - geograph.org.uk - 3521553. Photo by Chris Whitehouse, via Wikimedia Commons.

 Map of the area.

A POETIC CORNER OF COUNTY LONDONDERRY: SEAMUS HEANEY/LOUGH BEG

 The Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, who died in 2013, was born near the village of Bellaghy in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and he is also buried there at St Mary’s Church to the north of the village.  The surrounding countryside provided much inspiration for Heaney’s work, and there is now a museum, the Seamus Heaney HomePlace, dedicated to his life and work.

To the east-north-east of the village is a body of water called Lough Beg, north of the much bigger Lough Neagh.  Heaney’s extended family was touched by The Troubles in 1975 when his second cousin was shot dead, and it was after this tragic event that he wrote an elegy called The Strand at Lough Beg.  The poem’s references to his cousin’s violent death sit in stark contrast to the lyrical descriptions of the location: “Church Island’s spire, its soft treeline of yew”...the cattle “Up to their bellies in an early mist”...the “squeaking sedge”...”Lough Beg half shines under the haze”.

Lough Beg (Londonderry side) - geograph-2684320. Photo by Kenneth Allen, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lough Beg is a small freshwater lake which lies on the border between County Londonderry and County Antrim.  Church Island is a small island in the lake, its medieval church built on the site of an earlier monastic settlement.  The spire of the church provides a picturesque landmark.  The island lies within a protected nature reserve, so the best way to view it is via a specially constructed viewpoint at Longpoint Wood.

Church Island, Lough Beg - geograph-2684322. Photo by Kenneth Allen, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of the area.

A BONNIE BIRTHPLACE FOR A POET: ALLOWAY, SOUTH AYRSHIRE

 

One of the most famous poems by the Scottish poet Robert Burns is Tam O’ Shanter, written in 1791.  The poem was written by Burns while he was living in Dumfries and it features Ayr and the village of Alloway on the town’s southern outskirts, an area familiar to the poet since Alloway was where he was born.

Tam O’Shanter charts the progress of the Tam of the title as he makes his way home from a visit to the market which extends to a protracted stay in the pub.  The action takes place in Ayr and Alloway, Ayr being described as “Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses//For honest men and bonie lasses”.  Incidentally, the nickname given to the Ayr United football team is “The Honest Men”. 

As for Alloway, it is the Auld Kirk (old church) that plays a central role in the poem, described as “Alloway’s ault haunted kirk...whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry”.  Riding past the church, Tam takes a look through the window and sees witches and warlocks dancing a ceilikh, with the Devil playing the bagpipes.

Auld Kirk Alloway - geograph.org.uk - 1213335. Photo by Mary and Angus Hogg, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Alloway makes the most of its Burns connection, with BurnsCottage, a museum with self-guided tours, and with displays which include the bed in which Burns was born.  Admission also allows entrance to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, displaying original manuscripts and offering audio of songs and poems.  The Poet’s Path has a number of sculptures, and there is a Burns Monument and Gardens.

Burns Cottage - Alloway. Photo by DeFacto, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The remains of the Alloway Auld Kirk lie near the River Doon at the south-western end of the village.  Burns’ father and sister are buried in the graveyard.  The church was already a ruin by the time Burns was born, which must have given it a spooky appearance.  Small wonder, then, that Burns made it the scene of supernatural shenanigans.

Map of the area.

LAUREATE OF THE LAKES: ROBERT SOUTHEY/KESWICK

 There is a painting in Keswick Museum of a rather attractive young man with rosy cheeks and lips, dark curly hair and brown eyes.  The young man in question is Robert Southey, one of a trio of 18^th/19^th century poets associated with the Lake District.   The other two are William Wordsworth and Southey’s brother-in-law Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who we previously met in this blog living in Somerset.  Southey was born in Bristol, but he moved to Keswick in 1803 and died there 40 years later, spending 30 of those years as Poet Laureate. 

Robert Southey (1774-1843), Aged 31 John Opie (1761-1807) Keswick Museum. Via Wikimedia Commons.

During his time in the Lake District, Southey lived at Greta Hall, initially sharing it with the Coleridge family.  Occupying a position near the river in Keswick, Greta Hall was built around 1800.  The Hall was visited by a number of famous literary types including the Wordsworths, Charles Lamb, Shelly and Sir Walter Scott.  The Hall subsequently became a girls’ school and then girls’ boarding house, before becoming a private property when for a time it offered self-catering accommodation.  It was put up for sale in 2021 for £1.2 million and remains in private hands.

 

Greta Hall and Keswick Bridge by William Westall (1781-1850), via Wikimedia Commons.

I have struggled to find any poetry by Southey inspired by the Lake District.  His work covers a wide range of topics including various battles and wars, and the time he spent in Spain and Portugal, as well as the original version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  However, I found a poem by him titled “The Cataract of Lodore” (a Lake District beauty spot better known today as the Lodore Falls).  The poem was written in response to a query by Southey’s son, “How does the water come down at Lodore?”  The resulting poem comes across as an increasingly demented  but highly descriptive account of the descent of the falls, “smoking and frothing”...”striking and raging”...”swelling and sweeping”...”flying and flinging”...”heaving and cleaving”...”quivering and shivering”...”bubbling and troubling and doubling” – you get the picture. 

Lodore Falls 3. Photo by Antiquary, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

For those who want to check out this elaborate description for themselves, the Lodore Falls are near the southern edge of Derwentwater, just inland from the Lodore Falls Hotel and Spa. 

Map of the area.

A VICTIM OF BEECHING REMEMBERED: ADLESTROP, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

 

1966 was a happening year for Britain.  England won the World Cup, The Beatles topped the charts with We Can Work It Out, and Carnaby Street was leading the way for the fashionistas of the Swinging Sixties.  Unfortunately, it was far from a happening year for the tiny village of Adlestrop in Gloucestershire, which lost its railway station as part of the brutal Beeching Cuts, part of a massive overhaul of the country’s railways.  However, this charming country station has been immortalised in the poem Adlestrop by Edward Thomas, written during a journey undertaken by the poet in June 1914.

If the wording of the poem is anything to go by, underuse of the station was a likely reason for the closure:

 

                                                 No one left and no one came

                                                On the bare platform.  What I saw

                                                Was Adlestrop – only the name

 

The poem goes on to describe the flora and fauna around the station, consisting of willows, willow-herb, grass and meadowsweet, and a singing blackbird, with the poet imagining it being joined by all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Adlestrop village - geograph.org.uk - 2499726. Photo by Michael Dibb, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Adlestrop lies at the eastern extreme of the Cotswolds, near the border with Oxfordshire.  The famous Daylesford Organic farm shop is just to the south, and Moreton-in-Marsh is a couple of miles north-north-west.  The station was opened in 1853 on what is now called the Cotswold Line (Moreton-in-Marsh is on the same line, and still retains its station) but was originally part of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway.  The parish church of St Mary Magdalene dates from the 13^th century, but was rebuilt around the mid-18^th century. 

The other notable building in the village is Adlestrop Park, a Grade II listed building built by the Leigh family in the 18^th century.  The house was used as a school for a time, but this closed in 1989.  Jane Austen was a regular guest at the Rectory in Adlestrop, and it is believed that Adlestrop Park was the inspiration for Mansfield Park.  The house is now privately owned.

Adlestrop House - geograph.org.uk - 2485976. Photo by Michael Dibb, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of the area. 

THE HEAVENLY HAUNT OF A LINCOLNSHIRE LAD: GUNBY HALL

The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 in the village of Somersby in Lincolnshire.  Many of the lines in his work were inspired by the local landscape, for example it was a small stream in the vicinity that formed the basis of The Babbling Brook.  He also made frequent references to the woods in the area – “The silent woody places”. 



Being a member of the aristocracy, Tennyson had friends in high places in the locality.  One of them was Algernon Massingberd, the son of a local squire residing at Gunby Hall, a few miles from Somersby.  Tennyson, who by all accounts had a sad family life as well as losing his closest friend at a young age, paid regular visits to the hall, and must have found great solace there.  The hall is now the property of the National Trust, and visitors to the hall may notice a small framed picture above the fireplace in  one of the rooms.  The picture includes a few short lines describing the hall, and it is signed by Tennyson.  

Gunby Hall from the west.  Photo by DeFacto, via Wikimedia Commons.

The line forms part of Tennyson’s poem “The Palace of Art”, in which he imagines an art collection in a palace and its gardens constructed by a man who converses with his soul.  One of the pieces in the collection is described thus:



                            And one, an English home – gray twilight pour’d

                            On dewy pastures, dewy trees,

                            Softer than sleep – all things in order stored,

                            A haunt of ancient Peace



This is the verse reproduced in the picture above the fireplace, and it is widely thought to have been inspired by Gunby Hall. 



Another of Tennyson’s most famous poems, Maud, in which Maud is urged to “come into the garden”, makes references to the “musk of the rose”.  This was also probably inspired by the gardens of Gunby Hall, and there are still musk roses growing there today.  Another poem which may well have been inspired by the gardens of Gunby Hall is “The Gardener’s Daughter”. 



The gardens have changed a bit since Tennyson frequented them, but some features remaining would have been there at that time, such as the pigeon house and the garden seat against the west wall.  As for the plants, there is a cedar of Lebanon which was planted in 1812 by Algernon’s father.

Cedar of Lebanon Gunby Hall gardens - geograph.org.uk - 1352099. Photo by Paul Gray, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gunby Hall is a few miles inland from Skegness, at the south-east edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds AONB.  In normal times (not currently, obviously), the hall, estate and gardens are open to visitors, who can visit three floors of rooms full of collections dating from 1700, as well as the eight acres of gardens.

Map of the area.

BETJEMAN'S VISITS TO A PIECE OF EXOTICA IN OXFORDSHIRE: SEZINCOTE

When John Betjeman was a student at Oxford University he used to visit the family home of his friend John Dugdale. The home in question, nestled in the rural idyll of the East Cotswolds, was Sezincote, a riot of Indian-inspired exotica commissioned by Charles, the brother of Colonel John Cockerell, grandson of the famous diarist Samuel Pepys, who had amassed a fortune at the East India Company. The brief Charles Cockerell set his architect brother Samuel was for a grand house in the Rajasthan Mogul style. The house must have made an impression on the Prince Regent, who visited in 1807, as he was inspired to change his plans for the Royal Pavilion in Brighton following his time there.

As for Betjeman, the house and grounds provided the inspiration for a poem forming part of the Summoned By Bells collection, covering his early life from childhood to student years. Describing his visits to the house for Sunday lunches, he waxes lyrical about the Cotswold lanes being “heavy with hawthorn scent”, while the house itself is “Indian without and coolest Greek within”. In the grounds, the lake “was made to seem a mighty river-reach”, and included “The bridge, the waterfall, the Temple Pool”. Betjeman’s friends parents were Colonel Dugdale, whose “eyes looked out towards the hills”, and Mrs Dugdale “In trailing and Edwardian-looking dress”. He concludes by declaring that “Sezincote became a second home”. Sezincote is open to visitors with the house open in the afternoon from May to September inclusive on Thursdays, Fridays and Bank Holiday Mondays, while the garden is open from January to November.

Map of the area.

Sezincote House - geograph.org.uk - 1577252. Photo by Cameraman, via Wikimedia Commons.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: THE SOMERSET YEARS

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772 in Ottery St Mary in Devon, and he died in Highgate, Middlesex.  However, it was during the short time he spent in Somerset, in 1797-1798, when he lived at what is now known as Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey, that he produced some of his most famous work.  

Coleridge Cottage - Nether Stowey - Somerset, England - DSC01217. Photo by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons

Probably the most well known of his works is The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.  The story goes that Coleridge was walking in the Quantock Hills with William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, who were staying at nearby Alfoxton Park, when the conversation turned to a book Wordsworth was reading about a round-the-world sea voyage, and that this provided the inspiration for The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, which features an albatross which helps the ship and its crew out of an Antarctic ice jam.  There is a statue in nearby Watchet commemorating the poem, depicting the mariner with the albatross looped around his neck as described in one of the verses.

The Ancient Mariner, Watchet - geograph.org.uk - 1707049. Photo by Nigel Chadwick, via Wikimedia Commons

Another work conceived during this time was the poem Kubla Khan.  Coleridge started the poem in 1797 following a vision in a dream – possibly opium-induced, as Coleridge was in the habit of using opium to ease his health issues.  However, the poem was never completed because while he was composing it he had an unwelcome visitor from Porlock who interrupted his train of thought.  Since then the phrase “person from Porlock”, or just Porlock, has been used as a reference to an unwanted visitor who interrupts the writer’s creative flow. 

It was also during his time in Somerset that Coleridge composed a trio of poems known as the “conversation poems”: This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Frost at Midnight and The Nightingale.  In 1798 he teamed up with his new chum Wordsworth to produce a joint volume of poetry called Lyrical Ballads.  This is widely recognised as marking the birth of the English ‘romantic age’.  The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison includes an entrancing description of the charms of the Quantocks, referring to: “the many steepled tract magnificent”; the view towards the Bristol channel with “the slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles”; the elms whose “branches gleam a darker hue through the late twilight”; and the birds – “the bat wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters”.  In fact, Coleridge wrote this passage from the point of view of one of his friends, who had gone off to enjoy the hills while Coleridge was forced to stay behind at Nether Stowey after an accident involving boiling milk.

Newton, Bicknoller, and Quantock Hills - geograph.org.uk - 93580. Photo by Martin Southwood, via Wikimedia Commons

The village of Nether Stowey lies midway between Watchet and Bridgwater, just below the eastern flank of the Quantocks.  Coleridge Cottage, in Lime St, is now run by the National Trust and open to visitors.  There is a pub opposite called The Ancient Mariner in a nod to the famous poem.  Another point of interest in the village is the ancient Nether Stowey Castle, of which only the foundations of the keep remain.  It is believed that the castle was destroyed during the 12^th Century Civil War.

Map of the area.

WOEFUL IN WILTSHIRE: JOHN BETJEMAN AT MARLBOROUGH

The late John Betjeman, who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1972, and remained in the role until his death in 1984, leaves behind a wealth of evocative verse and prose, describing the places he knew and visited around Britain so vividly that he transports the reader back to an earlier time redolent with nostalgia.  One of his best known works is the autobiographical 'Summoned by Bells', which recalls his childhood, his school days and his time at University.  Chapter VII of the collection covers his time at Marlborough College, a boarding and day school in the attractive small Wiltshire town of the same name which he attended in the early 1920s.

Entrance to Marlborough College on the Bath Road - geograph.org.uk - 1509846. Photo by Steph, via Wikimedia Commons.

Betjeman was allegedly quite miserable at Marlborough College, where he spent five years (“Thank God I’ll never have to go through them again”) and he does not miss an opportunity to have a dig at it in his poetry, referring to it as “my prison house”.  Winters were a particular endurance test, described as “Black as our college suits, as cold and thin”.  Mealtimes did not bring any solace, with cakes “harder than the rocks”, tea which is “made from stewed up socks”, and a Dining Hall smelling of Irish Stew.  The teas at the College were described as a joke – “you only ate them when quite stony broke”.    

Sports formed a large part of life in the College, and Betjeman bemoaned the fact that for five years he and his fellow pupils “shivered in exiguous shorts”.  While at the College he founded a satirical magazine called ‘The Heretick’, which made fun of this obsession with sport.  Other negative memories recalled in the poem include the “casual beatings”, the stone flag passages and the iron bars.  In the early 1960s Betjeman made a documentary film about Marlborough, part of a series which became lost, but subsequently rediscovered.  The director of the piece on Marlborough recalls that it took some persuading to get him to go through the gates of the school for the filming on his first visit there for 40 years, such were his feelings about it.

It wasn’t all bad though, because he liked the town and adored the surrounding countryside.  He used to walk along the River Kennet, which he recalls in the poem with the line “The smell of trodden leaves beside the Kennet, On Sunday walks with Swinburne in my brain” (a reference to a fellow English poet).  He also cycled to Silbury, “by burnt-up hawthorn edged again with white from chalk dust whirled by Fords and Lancias” (Marlborough is in the middle of a predominantly chalk terrain) and to “sepulchral Avebury “.

Avebury Ring - geograph.org.uk - 443147. Photo by Simon Barnes, via Wikimedia Commons.

Marlborough used to be an important pit-stop on the old road from London to Bath, and the quaint old inns lining its main street are a reminder of that time.  Its most notable feature is its generous High Street, the second widest in the country, with a pleasant mix of pubs, cafes, restaurants and shops.  In fact, for a town of its size it has a surprisingly decent selection of shops, probably because the continued presence of Betjeman’s hated College lends the town an upmarket air.  The chalklands around Marlborough are full of fascinating ancient sites.  Silbury, mentioned above, is home to Silbury Hill, an artificial prehistoric chalk mound, and Avebury is famous for its Avebury Ring, a henge monument containing three stone circles.  These two Neolithic monuments, along with the West Kennet Long Barrow, are part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site.

High Street, Marlborough, from St Peter's Church roof - geograph.org.uk - 460662. Photo by Brian Robert Marshall, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of the area.

SHROPSHIRE IMAGINED: A E HOUSMAN

I have always assumed that the poet A. E. Housman was born in Shropshire, since his best known work is a collection of poems called A Shropshire Lad.  So, on researching him, I was surprised to discover that he was actally born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the county to the east of Shropshire, and that he wrote the work while living in London.  Housman once explained that Shropshire was on his western horizon, which made him romantic about it, and that he did not know the county well, so that some of the details about the county were wrong or imaginary.  However, this did not stop him from describing what he saw in the distance in famously poetic terms: "What are those blue remembered hills//What spires, what farms are those?"

One feature of the horizon that Housman may have discerned in the distance is Wenlock Edge, a limestone escarpment covered in woodland looked after by the National Trust which, along with another geographical feature known as The Wrekin, featured in the poem On Wenlock Edge from A Shropshire Lad, in which Housman describes a storm: "On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble//His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves".  Wenlock Edge, over 19 miles long, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to its geology.  At its north-eastern end is the picturesque small town of Much Wenlock with its Priory and Guildhall.  The Wrekin rises 407 metres above the Shropshire Plain and is visible from as far away as Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.  Another prominent elevation in the area is the Long Mynd a bit further to the west.  On several occasions I have passed these landmarks on my way to Wales, and they always strike me as a tantalising foretaste of the splendours of the Welsh mountains.

Towards The Wrekin - geograph.org.uk - 1086915. Photo by Paul Beaman, via Wikimedia Commons.

In his piece about the stormy weather on Wenlock Edge, Housman speculates that there would have been similar weather "when Uricon the city stood".  This is a reference to the Roman town of Uriconium, or Viroconium Cornoviorum, once the fourth largest Roman settlement in Britain.  The remains of the settlement lie near the present-day Wroxeter, a village near Shrewsbury, and include an archway which formed part of the baths' frigidarium.  The ruins are open to visitors and are run by English Heritage.

Viroconium Cornoviorum 08. Photo by Alastair Rae, via Wikimedia Commons.

The River Clun, which wends its way through the Shropshire countryside, lends its name to a number of villages as well as the small town of Clun, with its ruined medieval castle (English Heritage), nestling in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  In A Shropshire Lad Housman describes the sleepy nature of these settlements in the following whimsical verse: "Clunton and Clunbury//Clungunford and Clun//Are the quietest places//Under the sun."  Another larger town which features in the work is Ludlow, nowadays known as much as a foodie mecca as for its impressive castle overlooking the River Teme.  Housman writes about the town's fair: "The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair//There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold."  There is a memorial to Housman outside St Laurence's church in Ludlow and the ashes of the poet, who died in 1936, are buried under the stump of a cherry tree in the church grounds. 

Ludlow Castle from Whitcliffe, 2011. Photo by Ian Capper, via Wikimedia Commons.

Map of Shropshire.