HERRIES HOUSE - The Herries Chronicles Traditional Cache
HERRIES HOUSE - The Herries Chronicles
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In October 1935, Hugh Walpole (1884 – 1941) wrote the following remarks in his diary: "Shall I have any lasting reputation? Like every author in history who has seriously tried to be an artist, I sometimes consider the question. Fifty years from now I think the Lake stories will still be read locally, other-wise I shall be mentioned in a small footnote to my period in literary history." Perhaps he was rather harsh and pessimistic in this prediction, but of all his works only the Lake stories or the Herries Chronicles have consistently remained in print.
“However, Walpole, is beginning to attract the Lakeland literati once again and that revival of interest may prove attractive to film makers, particularly when it comes to the Herries Chronicles, which have been described as the area’s own Forsyte Saga”.
In 1923 having led a restless life, Walpole took a short holiday in the Lake District, and became enchanted with the area, feeling that at long last he had found a place where he could settle. The following year, he moved into Brackenburn, a hillside house overlooking Derwentwater, and it was there that he wrote the majority of his remaining output. Over the ensuing months, he absorbed the atmosphere, scenery and history of the Lake District, and as early as 1925 he was mulling over the idea of a series of Lake novels.
These ideas evolved over the coming years until Walpole had worked out a grand design for four large novels setting out 'the history of the Herries family over a period of two hundred years, from the 18th century to the depression of the 1930s.
The first book in the series, "Rogue Herries", was published 'in 1930, and Hugh Walpole reckoned that "it was the most important book of my life so far". The three sequels, "Judith Paris", "The Fortress" and "Vanessa", followed annually, and each one was duly showered with critical accolades.
Following the completion of the Herries Chronicles Walpole planned to enlarge it with the addition of four more novels. The plan was to begin with an Elizabethan Herries, and then continue the family saga up to the start of "Rogue Herries". In his diaries, Hugh Walpole even planned six later novels which would continue the history beyond the 1930s.
In reality, he wrote the first in the new series, which was published in 1940 under the title "The Bright Pavilions", but only managed to complete half of the next novel, "Katherine Christian", before his untimely death.
The Hazel Bank hotel sits on the spot where the Herries house stood, however this house never existed except in the imagination of the novelist Hugh Walpole. This imposing early Victorian residence was built in 1840 by a wealthy banker, Thomas Simpson, on his return from America to the valley of his forebears. Hazel Bank was to be the dream home for the Simpson family. Access is up its own private driveway over a humpbacked bridge - Simpson Bridge - where Hazel Bank stands proudly above the valley floor some 200 yards away from the main Borrowdale road. Its situation provides a tranquil and peaceful location for walkers and tourists alike.
Sir Hugh Walpole was a friend to the Simpson family and as such was a frequent visitor to Hazel Bank. It is not surprising that he used this setting in his "Herries Chronicles" as the home of the Rogue Herries and the birthplace of Judith Paris, referring to it as "the house with the dormers like eyebrows".
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Onfr bs gerr.
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