I visited Yeats’ tower, Thoor Ballylee, last year with a large group and will return next month as part of a much more intimate historian-led tour. What struck me most were the wide windows in one room and the view from the top of the tower. I imagined how easy it would be to move between worlds in such an environment.
This sounds like a fascinating trip - and some good info from a historian will make it all the more interesting. I've never been to Thoor Balllylee. And I'd love to know more once you've been for the second time Sue.
We have two homes of note here. The first is the home of Pearl S. Buck, who graduated from my Alma mater, Randolph Macon Woman’s College. Strangely, that home just has a plaque and is not open to the public, but a friend of mine lives there, so I have been able to see inside. The other is open to the public and it’s the poet, Anne Spenser’s House, with its fabulous gardens that are perfect for sitting and writing in. They allow visitors to come and stay in the gardens for as long as they like during hours. I’m a big fan of seeing where artists work. I’ve also seen the cabin where Georgia O’Keefe lived in Taos NM and many more.
Do you think, Amanda, that by being present in the space where good writing took place, the magic might rub off on us? It sort of makes me wish we could channel the muse.
Thanks so much for letting us know about these two writers' houses.
I do think that being in their spaces inspires my own creativity. I also have visited Edgar Allen Poe’s room at UVA and the site of his former home that burned down in Richmond. Both of those visits seemed to get me on a poetry kick for quite some time, not to mention inspiring more Raven paintings. Lol. I think my muses like knowing where others have created great things before me.
The. best one I've been to is Mauriac's house near Bordeaux: https://www.seebordeaux.com/museums/malagar-centre-francois-mauriac-saint-macaire-682233. A fastidious man, he arranged his study so that he faced north to his present (Paris), while behind him the was towards his past (Aquitaine). I also recommend C S Lewis's house, The Kilns, near Oxford, carefully preserved by his many American admirers.
Thanks for this info Mark. If I were to visit Mauriac's house I would be one of the 'ignorant' tourists as I've not read this author. But, from what you say, it would be fascinating indeed to visit this house.
As a professional nerd ;-) I love visiting writer's homes. I live in the northeast U.S., so I have visited Edith Wharton's mansion in Lenox, MA; Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, MA, and the Alcott family's home in Concord, MA. Also the Mark Twain house in Hartford, CT, and his practically next-door neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe. I also love visiting historic artists' homes. Yasmin, thank you for this post. Edinburgh is very high on my list of places to visit (and nerd out on writers' homes).
Thanks so much for your reply, and I think you have some great experience here with all these sites of literary interest. Which was the most surprising I wonder?
No doubt time spent at these places has fed into the research for your Substack, 'Literary Ladies Guide'. Great work you're doing there!
First of all, sorry I called you Kolina (another Substack I enjoy, and which arrived around the same time; I fixed it). Thank you for your kind thoughts. I forgot to add, I've been wanting to visit the Brontë Parsonage for years. I'm obsessed with the Brontë sisters. And as far as which was the most surprising, that's a great question; I can't choose any one, they all revealed hidden treasures in their own ways.
Ah, that's OK, and I'm so pleased to learn about your work. You must find time to get to the Parsonage - I've only seen it from the outside. I'd like to go in sometime and since it's not far from where I live now, it's on my list!
Sounds like a thought provoking day and a great post. And thanks for the heads up regarding the mailing list. As part of my Tolworth Treasure writing and walking project a few years back we had a 'Richard Jefferies walk'. The prolific writer and consumptive Victorian naturalist lived in Tolworth for several years and there is a blue plaque there. He is sadly uncelebrated in the local area, considering he wrote a seminal book 'Nature Near London' while there. So we paid someone to dress up and surprise our participants, by suddenly appearing about 50 yards ahead, dressed in full Victorian gentleman garb. It was magical and we felt a palpable change in the atmosphere! People reacted really positively. I also read some of his writing while we visited some of the places he wrote about and read some of my own poetry too. The walk was recorded for BBC Radio 4 as part of their Walking Women programme.
Wow, what a lovely way to celebrate the home of an author, Lucy.
I remember Tolworth for probably all the wrong reasons - there was a ten-pin bowling club there. Does it still exist? Hah, you've brought back a few memories of past boyfriends.
Thanks for recounting your experience and I'm so glad you got recognition on tele for your walk!
Thanks - yes it was Charrington Bowl! Now a Hollywood Bowl... poor Tolworth is undergoing over-development and that was partly why I did the project... glad but sad to leave after my dad died.
Great article and thanks for sharing. I'm currently researching into the fans who visit Jane Austen related sites and what they get from the experience. I'm fascinated by the connection between tourist experience and personal identity that interplays when fans visit their idol's home and how we emotionally identify with positive attributes of an author or their characters
Oooh, Nicola, that's a super project. Have you got funding for it? I think it's a good time to be researching dear Jane with it being the 250th anniversary of her birth. It's incredible to think she was born that long ago when her work speaks to us so clearly today.
I was hiking the Centennial Trail in South Dakota years ago and passed Badger Hole. Knew nothing of this western cowboy poet, Badger Clark. Still don't. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by the experience to peek into the rooms of a writer who lived in a place and time so different from the current.
You've made me think, Stacy, that all writers have something in common. We need a special place to write, some chair somewhere that will help us get the words out in the right order. I've never heard of Badger Clark either. What a brilliant name!
The well-known view of the crowded graveyard and church in Haworth from the Bronte's home seems so sombre and gothic today. This is a place that once inspired writers and also now has become permeated with the events and characters in their novels.
Have you, as a tourist, visited a writer’s home? What did you think?
I visited Yeats’ tower, Thoor Ballylee, last year with a large group and will return next month as part of a much more intimate historian-led tour. What struck me most were the wide windows in one room and the view from the top of the tower. I imagined how easy it would be to move between worlds in such an environment.
This sounds like a fascinating trip - and some good info from a historian will make it all the more interesting. I've never been to Thoor Balllylee. And I'd love to know more once you've been for the second time Sue.
We have two homes of note here. The first is the home of Pearl S. Buck, who graduated from my Alma mater, Randolph Macon Woman’s College. Strangely, that home just has a plaque and is not open to the public, but a friend of mine lives there, so I have been able to see inside. The other is open to the public and it’s the poet, Anne Spenser’s House, with its fabulous gardens that are perfect for sitting and writing in. They allow visitors to come and stay in the gardens for as long as they like during hours. I’m a big fan of seeing where artists work. I’ve also seen the cabin where Georgia O’Keefe lived in Taos NM and many more.
Do you think, Amanda, that by being present in the space where good writing took place, the magic might rub off on us? It sort of makes me wish we could channel the muse.
Thanks so much for letting us know about these two writers' houses.
I do think that being in their spaces inspires my own creativity. I also have visited Edgar Allen Poe’s room at UVA and the site of his former home that burned down in Richmond. Both of those visits seemed to get me on a poetry kick for quite some time, not to mention inspiring more Raven paintings. Lol. I think my muses like knowing where others have created great things before me.
That's lovely. Thank you for sharing.
The. best one I've been to is Mauriac's house near Bordeaux: https://www.seebordeaux.com/museums/malagar-centre-francois-mauriac-saint-macaire-682233. A fastidious man, he arranged his study so that he faced north to his present (Paris), while behind him the was towards his past (Aquitaine). I also recommend C S Lewis's house, The Kilns, near Oxford, carefully preserved by his many American admirers.
Thanks for this info Mark. If I were to visit Mauriac's house I would be one of the 'ignorant' tourists as I've not read this author. But, from what you say, it would be fascinating indeed to visit this house.
As a professional nerd ;-) I love visiting writer's homes. I live in the northeast U.S., so I have visited Edith Wharton's mansion in Lenox, MA; Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, MA, and the Alcott family's home in Concord, MA. Also the Mark Twain house in Hartford, CT, and his practically next-door neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe. I also love visiting historic artists' homes. Yasmin, thank you for this post. Edinburgh is very high on my list of places to visit (and nerd out on writers' homes).
Thanks so much for your reply, and I think you have some great experience here with all these sites of literary interest. Which was the most surprising I wonder?
No doubt time spent at these places has fed into the research for your Substack, 'Literary Ladies Guide'. Great work you're doing there!
First of all, sorry I called you Kolina (another Substack I enjoy, and which arrived around the same time; I fixed it). Thank you for your kind thoughts. I forgot to add, I've been wanting to visit the Brontë Parsonage for years. I'm obsessed with the Brontë sisters. And as far as which was the most surprising, that's a great question; I can't choose any one, they all revealed hidden treasures in their own ways.
Ah, that's OK, and I'm so pleased to learn about your work. You must find time to get to the Parsonage - I've only seen it from the outside. I'd like to go in sometime and since it's not far from where I live now, it's on my list!
I'll let you know when I get there, since you live not far away; that's amazing!
Sounds like a thought provoking day and a great post. And thanks for the heads up regarding the mailing list. As part of my Tolworth Treasure writing and walking project a few years back we had a 'Richard Jefferies walk'. The prolific writer and consumptive Victorian naturalist lived in Tolworth for several years and there is a blue plaque there. He is sadly uncelebrated in the local area, considering he wrote a seminal book 'Nature Near London' while there. So we paid someone to dress up and surprise our participants, by suddenly appearing about 50 yards ahead, dressed in full Victorian gentleman garb. It was magical and we felt a palpable change in the atmosphere! People reacted really positively. I also read some of his writing while we visited some of the places he wrote about and read some of my own poetry too. The walk was recorded for BBC Radio 4 as part of their Walking Women programme.
Wow, what a lovely way to celebrate the home of an author, Lucy.
I remember Tolworth for probably all the wrong reasons - there was a ten-pin bowling club there. Does it still exist? Hah, you've brought back a few memories of past boyfriends.
Thanks for recounting your experience and I'm so glad you got recognition on tele for your walk!
Thanks - yes it was Charrington Bowl! Now a Hollywood Bowl... poor Tolworth is undergoing over-development and that was partly why I did the project... glad but sad to leave after my dad died.
Great article and thanks for sharing. I'm currently researching into the fans who visit Jane Austen related sites and what they get from the experience. I'm fascinated by the connection between tourist experience and personal identity that interplays when fans visit their idol's home and how we emotionally identify with positive attributes of an author or their characters
Oooh, Nicola, that's a super project. Have you got funding for it? I think it's a good time to be researching dear Jane with it being the 250th anniversary of her birth. It's incredible to think she was born that long ago when her work speaks to us so clearly today.
Literary tourism is such a fascinating topic - I wrote a little bit about it here https://open.substack.com/pub/shellydennison/p/dickensland?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=d4yil
Brilliant post, Shelly, I enjoyed it enormously. Thank you for pointing me to it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I was hiking the Centennial Trail in South Dakota years ago and passed Badger Hole. Knew nothing of this western cowboy poet, Badger Clark. Still don't. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by the experience to peek into the rooms of a writer who lived in a place and time so different from the current.
You've made me think, Stacy, that all writers have something in common. We need a special place to write, some chair somewhere that will help us get the words out in the right order. I've never heard of Badger Clark either. What a brilliant name!
1883-1957. What a time that would have been.
In lieu of the chair, per se, the outdoor space which has chairs aplenty.
The well-known view of the crowded graveyard and church in Haworth from the Bronte's home seems so sombre and gothic today. This is a place that once inspired writers and also now has become permeated with the events and characters in their novels.
Of course, Carol. Yes, the Brontë's Parsonage might be said to be one of the first homes visited by literary tourists.