Posts

Just in Jacobstowe

Image
At Jacobstowe church Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Zof Devon Women Writers' Places  Just in Jacobstowe Well, for anyone who may previously have stumbled upon this blog and given up bothering to look again, thinking I'd forgotten to update it, here I am - and it is - again. Yes, admittedly I have been preoccupied with other writing projects, but the impasse here, in this A-Z was the letter. 'J' - and the complex deliberations involved as I tried to identify the identity of a certain Saxon lady.       If any of you out there knows of a woman writer back through the centuries (before about 1960) who has lived in or has an important connection with a parish in Devon beginning with J, please let me know!       But then, at the outset I am restricted, given that there is only one 'J' parish. Jacobstowe! I love the parish; before the large family decamped down to Brixham it was the childhood home of my maternal grandmother, who recounted m

I'm up in Ilfracombe

Image
I ... Ilfracombe Scenes around Ilfracombe Photo Julie Sampson A - Z of Devon Places and Women Writers  Said to be Rev., John Chanter and his wife Charlotte Kingsley Chanter outside their vicarage home in Ilfracombe. (Photo copy from Ilfracombe Museum)          Ilfracombe has enticed various women writers and in this A-Z it was the obvious choice to represent 'I'. Most famously,  although she was a visitor to Devon,   George Eliot stayed in the town in 1856, at the beginning of her literary career. Her  contemporary,  Charlotte Chanter , daughter of Reverend Charles Kingsley , and sister of the more famous authors Charles, Henry and George was local and is the central focus of this blog piece. Charlotte  wrote several novels, including   Over the Cliffs   as well as a travel memoir,  Ferney Combes , 1856, an unusual book about her driving tour with husband across Devon looking for ferns. Charlotte Chanter (1828-1882) in 1856 wrote a short ‘guide’

H ... Her-Story at Hartland

Image
Hartland Abbey  © Copyright  Roger Cornfoot  and licensed for reuse under this  Creative Commons Licence               A-Z of Devon Places and Devon Women Writers Her-Story at Hartland        My choice of Hartland for 'H' in this A-Z of Devon places associated with Devon women writers is twofold; I have two 'Devon' women in mind. They lived centuries apart and, for different reasons, both of their lives and specific connections with Hartland are swathed in mystery. They are  Elizabeth Stucley Northmore , who was a C20 writer and the very much earlier  Gytha , the C11 Danish noblewoman who spent part of her life in Devon, and became mother of kings and queens.          Not much appears to be known about either Gytha or Elizabeth; but they share certain characteristics, especially their upper-class ancestries.         Fifteen or so years before she escaped from Exeter down the river Exe and from thence more or less out of his or her story, Gytha mother o