BRACKENBURN - The Herries Chronicles
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Drive-by. Limited parking in small layby on east side of Cat Bells.
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 reckon¬ed 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.
Hugh Walpole bought Brackenburn, overlooking Derwentwater, his ‘little paradise on Catbells’, in 1923. Originally a bungalow built of local Honister slate in 1909, he enlarged it and converted the upper storey of the nearby garage into a library and study, which eventually housed his library of 30,000 books, and his collection of paintings.
The terraced garden in front of the house was designed by Walpole, who channelled a small beck to feed fountains and a pond. Literary visitors included J B Priestly, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Ransome, W H Auden and Francis Brett Young. He wrote ‘The Herries Chronicles’ whilst living at Brackenburn and 15 volumes of his diaries, which are now in the Keswick Museum & Art Gallery along with the manuscripts of many of his works and those of Wordsworth and Southey.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Oruvaq 'zneoyrbhf' ebpx.