Women Writing on the Devon Land: A County's Women Who Wrote - circa 1965

Old Schoolhouse Martinhoe Writing Women on the Devon Land A-Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Marking the Way to Martinhoe Old Schoolhouse Martinhoe          The little parish of Martinhoe in north Devon has to represent the 'M' in this  A-Z of Devon Women Writers & Places. I began the journey toward writing a  book about women many years ago, long before I researched then embarked on the written study of particular women writers. During the late eighties and early nineties, whilst researching and writing up my PhD, I ventured up to the remoter landscape north of the county to find where author/poet H.D.’s once stayed, in north Devon. She was there For several months in 196, during World War One she lived at Martinhoe then along the road at Parracombe .  Just as many other women writers associated with the South West, H.D. had significant connections with at least two of its counties, in her case it was with ...

Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Lapford Around Lapford, possible places of the site of Dowriche's home in the C16. Lane and Vie of Parsonage Farm & Court Barton across the road from the church. Photo Julie Sampson       It’s not easy to adjust your field of vision and cut out all the paraphernalia of modern life, even in a small village, or hamlet. The traffic and take-aways, the maze-like housing estates, all the accoutrements of contemporary rural life screen out what is inevitably there somewhere, just below and behind the surface. A wall; a ruin; a high hedge; an eave jutting out from a building; a mound in a field; an old house over there, with turrets.       See there, the other side of the valley; there's a monument inside the village church (if, that is, you're lucky and the door is not locked). But here I am, late autumn, atop the village, walking up toward Lapford church; the v...