Make some tea and come along with us on a literary tour
… of history’s greatest authors and poets — starting with Jane Austen and (spoiler) ending with Taylor Swift at the #ErasTour 🫶
We start in Bath. Home to Jane Austen between 1801 and 1806. She was so fond of the ancient city that it found its way into her novels ‘Persuasion’ and ‘Northanger Abbey’.
Next: the Cotswolds.
Tolkien used many spots throughout the Cotswolds for inspiration in the Lord of the Rings books. The Cotswolds also has links to Sir James Barrie, author of Peter Pan. And if you’re a Father Brown murder mystery fan, you’ll recognise the TV film set, too.
The next stop is Stratford-Upon-Avon for Shakespearean inspiration at his birthplace and a trip to Anne Hathaway’s chocolate box cottage (visited much later by both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain).
Next: Nottingham.
For Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest folklore at the oldest inn in England.
If Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney count as authors for re-writing Wrexham A.F.C history, our next stop then also counts as part of the tour. Iconic food truck “bap” included.
From Wales to Windermere, we now move into the beautiful Lake District (“take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die”) starting off with Beatrix Potter’s inspiration for Peter Rabbit — with a special shoutout to the recreated Mr McGregor veggie patch.
And then just a hop, skip and a jump away in Grasmere is William Wordsworth’s home — Dove Cottage — where he lived, laughed, loved until 1808, helping to launch the Romantic Age in English literature.
2.5 hours (of car motion sickness) later, we reach Edinburgh which inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, Sherlock Holmes; Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy; and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.
And then: Taylor Swift.
Mastermind storyteller, lyricist, wordsmith and author of The Tortured Poets Department. Plot twist: believed to be related to Emily Dickinson — the two both descend from a 17th-century English immigrant, making them sixth cousins, three times removed.
Tell me what are my Words-Worth?
Next stop: London 🏴
