The following titles are available from all good stockists, or can be ordered directly from RupertWilloughby@btinternet.com.
Rupert Willoughby is pleased to announce the publication of:
BASINGSTOKE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD CULTURE
ISBN 978 0 9534428 6 7, £10.99
Basingstoke is a phenomenon. One of the most derided towns in England, it is renowned for its pointless roundabouts, vacuous shopping centres and hostile Modernist architecture, and treated as a joke even by its own residents. It is not widely recognised for its contributions to ‘world culture’.
Using all his ingenuity, Rupert Willoughby has scoured the historical record in his mission to rehabilitate Basingstoke. He describes the manner in which demented post-war planners wilfully robbed the town of its individuality and charm. Yet a nobler Basingstoke lies buried under the concrete – the Basingstoke of Walter de Merton, the medieval pioneer of university education; of Jane Austen, who attended regular balls in the old Town Hall and describes them in her novels; of Thomas Burberry, inventor of the raincoat and reformer of dress, whose influence on fashion is felt to this day; and of Margaret Chandler, who has lent her name to a delightfully sunny spot in Australia.
This is local history with a difference. Imbued with a strong sense of place, it is accurate but rarely impartial. The author strives to be anything but dry and reverential, yet evokes with great sympathy the tragi-comic lives of Basingstoke’s former inhabitants. He cannot make you like the town, but at the end you may, at least, understand it.
‘Entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking … this book is to be enjoyed, light in tone, well researched and occasionally contentious’
Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society Newsletter
‘A work of solid historical research, no more tongue in cheek than its subject matter demands, and thoroughly entertaining … I found myself with a greater understanding of Basingstoke and considerably greater affection and sympathy for the town’
Jim Osgerby, The Odiham Society Journal
‘A most entertaining and enlightening enterprise. It makes you want to visit Basingstoke, and that is quite some achievement.’
Michael Warman, The Jane Austen Society News Letter
READING AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD CULTURE
First published 2008, ISBN 978 09534428 5 3, £8.99
Poor Reading! It has a formidable history, yet has been so careless of its historic fabric. How is the intelligent visitor to cope with it? Here he, or she, can discover the important part that Reading has played in the lives of various poets and writers: how Sappho’s lost verses were preserved in Huntley and Palmers’ biscuit tins; how a local man, John of Earley, had the life of William the Marshal commemorated in verse; how Jane Austen, Coleridge and Oscar Wilde all found inspiration here; and how a theft on Reading Station drove T.E. Lawrence to despair … Wry but affectionate, this is the essential vade mecum as Reading bids for ‘City of Culture’ status.
‘Yes, it is Reading the town, not Reading, the activity! And yes, Rupert Willoughby eloquently persuaded me that Reading could indeed claim this title. I must admit that at first glance the extraordinary collection of titles and phrases on the front cover were the sort of thing a typesetter uses to display different fonts. But no, every one has its place in the book, from the obvious “Huntley and Palmer Ginger Nuts” to “The Oxyrhynchos Papyri”. Rupert says his book is intended as “an antidote to the vulgarity of modern Reading, or as a provocation to higher thoughts than it usually inspires”. I found this little book so fascinating that I can’t either summarise its contents or pick out “cherries”. Do find it for yourself (at Waterstones or Milestones) and make your own discoveries …’
Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society Newsletter
‘A substantial and interesting chapter is, as one would expect, devoted to Reading Gaol. The Huntley and Palmer biscuit factory was close by, and one of Oscar Wilde’s friends was Walter Palmer, whose brother George, the chairman of Huntley and Palmer, was one of the five magistrates comprising the Reading Gaol Visiting Committee. He and the future Lord Chancellor, Richard Haldane, took a personal interest in Wilde’s welfare and transferred him for his health from Wandsworth to Reading. Incidentally, the biscuits which Wilde’s good friend Warder Thomas Martin gave him in his last weeks in the Gaol were Huntley and Palmer ginger nuts.
Other chapters include accounts of Jane Austen at the Reading Ladies Boarding School, Coleridge at the Bear Inn, and the over-enthusiastic beating of boys at Reading School. There is even, just about, a connection with Sappho: Huntley and Palmer biscuits sustained the classicists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt in Egypt during their search for papyri, and the biscuits tins were invaluable for packing their finds for shipment back to Oxford, which included newly discovered stanzas by Sappho.
This is a lively, informative, discursive and very civilised little book which will tuck into one’s pocket, and on a train journey between Paddington and Reading while away the time most agreeably.’
Intentions (Journal of the Oscar Wilde Society)
‘If he were not so deadly serious, I would guess that he was having us on.’
Dr Tony Corley, The Jane Austen Society News Letter
CHAWTON: JANE AUSTEN’S VILLAGE
With illustrations by Julie Anne Hudson
2nd Edition 2003 (first published 1998), ISBN 09534428 4 5, £5.99
The mecca for Jane Austen’s admirers worldwide, the Hampshire village of Chawton has changed little in the past 200 years, and is easily explored on foot.
This book attempts to re-create the landscape that Jane Austen would have known. At the same time it is a comprehensive survey of Chawton’s thousand-year history – from the turbulent medieval period, when the parish was both the retreat of kings and a centre of organised crime, to the most up-to-date developments.
It explores the beautiful Elizabethan manor-house – inaccessible to visitors – that was inherited by Jane’s brother, and offers a step-by-step guide to the many historic buildings in the village.
Constructed mainly from Jane Austen’s letters, from the Knight family archive and from parish records, it draws also upon personal information and site visits as well as dozens of printed sources. It is intended not only for Jane’s admirers, but for all who live in or visit Chawton, and who have an interest in its past.
This revised and expanded edition of Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village – still the only book of its kind – includes new material based on recently-released documents and has been brought fully up to date.
‘An excellent example of how a village guide can and should be written and produced’
The Coat of Arms
‘Fascinating reading … It would be very interesting to walk around the village with this book in hand’
Maggie Lane, The Jane Austen Society Newsletter
‘Must surely become required reading for visitors to the village’
Hampshire Life
The Great House, Chawton, built in the 1580s on the site of a medieval manor-house. It was made over to Jane Austen’s brother Edward in 1797, by a distant relative, Mrs Thomas Knight. As a condition of the gift Edward reluctantly changed his surname to Knight. The house at the time was covered in white stucco and was in a ’somewhat dilapidated state’. Edward favoured the Knight seat at Godmersham, near Canterbury, while Chawton was let to a series of short-term tenants, persons of fortune such as Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. Edward was only occasionally in residence himself, in the intervals between tenancies.
SELBORNE: GILBERT WHITE’S VILLAGE, WITH A GUIDE TO HIS HOUSE
With illustrations by Julie Anne Hudson
First published 2000, ISBN 09534428 2 9, £5.99
Selborne in Hampshire, a place of ‘hollow vales, and hanging woods’, is famed as the life-long home of the Rev. Gilbert White. First published in 1788, White’s Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne is one of the enduring classics of English literature.
The romantic landscape that inspired White is as rich in human as in natural history. In 1232, a mighty Augustinian Priory was founded here by a warrior-bishop. Though dissolved in 1484, it has left a permanent mark. Crusaders, kings and saints have come and gone. In the 13th century, Selborne nurtured Sir Adam de Gurdon, whose adventures as an outlaw may have inspired the story of Robin Hood. Templar knights lived here quietly and dreamed of Jerusalem.
With the passing of the Priory, Selborne was condemned to centuries of isolation and poverty. Almost completely inaccessible by road, it preserved the aspect, customs and even the speech of an earlier age. A dramatic riot that took place here in 1830, and the construction in 1847 of a new road, marked the ending of its long quietude.
Selborne: Gilbert White’s Village tells the story of this remarkable parish from Saxon times. It includes a full account of the author’s life, and a detailed description of The Wakes, the house in which he lived and worked. It concludes with a step-by-step guide to historic Selborne, pointing out the actual scenes of many of White’s observations. It is intended as a souvenir and practical guide for all who come to the village.
‘A real treat … It brilliantly conveys a sense of Selborne’s development from the Middle Ages to the present day … Well-written and beautifully produced, this is an example of local history at its best’
Mark Page, Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society Newsletter
‘This hugely enjoyable treatise, greatly enhanced by the fine delicate drawings of Julie Anne Hudson, with its easy style and wonderfully-researched detail is a real pleasure to read’
Julie Edwards, The Selborne Association Newsletter
SHERBORNE ST JOHN AND THE VYNE IN THE TIME OF JANE AUSTEN, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR EARLIER HISTORY
First published 2003, ISBN 0 9534428 3 7, £9.95
‘Less than two hundred years have passed since a bemused Sherborne St John, then a stagnant community of peasants speaking a language of their own, was tardily dragged into the modern world. There has been no looking back …’
In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Sherborne St John experienced a revolution. Much of this Hampshire village was rebuilt by its reforming squire, William Wiggett Chute of The Vyne. Crumbling thatched cottages were pulled down by the dozen and replaced with smart brick dwellings. Ancient farming practices were abolished, and new roads were created in place of muddy tracks. A village school was founded and the emigration of ‘undesirables’ was actively promoted. Chute thus laid firm foundations for the thriving, prosperous community of today.
This is the story of Sherborne on the brink of change. Through the eyes of contemporaries, the author describes, in extraordinary detail, its medieval landscape and way of life, touching vividly on personalities and on houses great and small – the surprising and sometimes shocking backdrop to the novels of Jane Austen.
From the Preface
The Vyne in Hampshire, former seat of the Chute family, is one of the finest and best-known Tudor mansions in England. Much has been written of the house and its contents: they were bequeathed to the National Trust by Sir Charles Chute, who died in 1956. The untold story is that of the surrounding parish, and of its relations with The Vyne over many centuries.
Originally the palatial residence of Lord Sandys, a favourite of Henry VIII, The Vyne has received many famous visitors, including Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Ralegh. Reduced in scale by the Chutes, it seemed to be almost forgotten by time. Virtually unreachable by road, it descended into an obscure country seat, all but invisible under a thick covering of ivy.
The parish of Sherborne St John, which had profited from the nearness of a medieval priory and from the patronage of the Sandys family, had in the process become a stultifying, forsaken backwater. Its neglect was never more evident than in the lordship of William John Chute (1757 – 1824), whose life and times have been documented in extraordinary detail. An unusual if attractive personality, Chute was uncomfortable with all forms of change, which he resisted to the utmost. His inertia was matched by that of his feudally-minded neighbour, Mrs Brocas of Beaurepaire, with whom he shared a controlling interest in the parish.
By focusing on Chute, this book opens a window on the whole rich past of Sherborne St John, before the obliteration, in the 19th century, of much of its ancient fabric. Wry and controversial, it is the story of two great houses and of many lesser ones; of high art juxtaposed with the vernacular; of significant events and of daily routine; of masters and servants; of rich folk, and of the abundant poor.
‘Remarkably concise and informative’
David Selwyn, The Jane Austen Society Newsletter
‘More satisfying to young Caroline … was the Brocas monument in Bramley Church, in which the ‘old-fashioned’ lady of her acquaintance was cast in a new light, as the beautiful young wife who supports her expiring husband. The sculpted figures are both dressed in classical garb (Mrs Brocas wears a veil), although the portly Mr Brocas retains the fashionable periwig of his own era. The work is variously ascribed to Thomas Banks, R.A., or to Thomas Carter the younger, who was in the area at the time, still working in 1780 on the monument to Speaker Chute at The Vyne.’
A KEY TO ODIHAM CASTLE
With illustrations by Julie Anne Hudson
First published 1997, ISBN 0 9534428 1 2, £3.99
Neglected and forlorn, the ruins of Odiham Castle convey an inadequate sense today of its former grandeur. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this was an important royal residence and stronghold, the object of lavish expenditure by each successive monarch from John to Edward III, and, during their regular visits here, the epicentre of government – a place, therefore, of national significance. A dilapidated tower and an overgrown moat are the Castle’s only visible remains, which, however surprising and impressive to the walker as he first stumbles upon them, are baffling to the inexpert and perhaps, for that reason, somewhat disappointing too. It is for casual visitors to Odiham Castle that this book is intended, as a key with which to unlock some of the mysteries of this evocative site.
‘The author draws upon both written and archaeological evidence to conjure up the medieval appearance and atmosphere of the castle’
Hampshire Chronicle
LIFE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, 1066 – 1485
First published 1997, ISBN 0 85372 840 2, £4.99
The castles, cathedrals and parish churches of England are the most impressive visible legacies of the Middle Ages. Almost all of them date from the period after 1066, when England was conquered by the Norman invaders from France. The buildings remain, but what of the life that went on inside them? For these were the haunts of the colourfully-clad lords and ladies, the ribald clergymen and the servile peasants of popular legend. They were the backdrop to extravagant feasts, to tournaments between armoured knights, to courtly rituals, and to displays of fanatical piety. The colours may have faded, but the romance lingers still …
Forthcoming …
THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF VICTOR HUGO’S DOG
A true-life romance set in fin-de-siècle France, England and Switzerland
House-party at the Château de Faletans (Jura), summer 1899. Left to right: Simone de Faletans, Isabel Mumby, Nicole de Faletans, Madame Tarr, Nils, Madge Mumby, and the dogs Billy and Dax.
It is 1895, and Liverpool cotton-broker Lindsay Hall has retired to Montreux, the Swiss resort on Lake Léman. Residing at the Hôtel Suisse, the old man touchingly discovers that he is in demand.
Short, white-bearded, habitually clad in a black velvet coat, the impecunious Hall is an eternal optimist, whose cheerful nature endears him to young and old. Befriended by the Marquise de Faletans and her pretty daughters, Nicole and Simone, and by the beautiful Madame Kolychko, who is staying with them at a neighbouring villa, he is soon launched on a heady social life, and is blissfully happy.
Through Hall, young Nicole meets the handsome Cyril Mumby from Gosport, heir to a wealthy mineral-water manufacturer. When the couple fall in love, the relationship is blessed – despite their contrasting backgrounds – and even encouraged by their indulgent parents. Hall spends dreamy summers at the Château de Faletans, in eastern France, and witnesses the unfolding romance.
Meanwhile, the hapless Captain Dreyfus, falsely convicted of spying, languishes on the hell of Devil’s Island. A campaign for a ‘revision’ of his sentence, which bitterly divides France, is led by Madame Straus, an intimate friend of the Faletans, who soon find themselves in the thick of the ‘Affair’ …
Through a remarkable combination of letters, photographs and memories, the world of Hall and his friends is evoked in extraordinary detail – from genteel, cosmopolitan Montreux to remote Faletans and its community of peasants, from bourgeois, narrow-minded Gosport to the charmingly old-fashioned Honiton, home to generations of Cyril’s ancestors.
As Hall discovers, the gentle Marquise is step-daughter to the self-centred, amoral Alexandre Dumas fils, and has a sensational past. Victor Hugo, George Sand, Flaubert, Bizet, Maupassant and Proust, all close family friends, feature prominently in the story.
Poignant and romantic, it spans four generations and unfolds against a background of dramatic events – the Franco-Prussian War, the ordeal of Dreyfus, the horrors of the First World War trenches – and of far-reaching social and technological change – from the advance of ‘feminism’ to the introduction of the motor-car – in all of which the main characters were directly involved.
Faletans, July 1899. Cyril Mumby (left) and Lindsay Hall battle at chess, while Nicole, to whom Cyril has just become engaged, dutifully poses. This was one of dozens of photographs taken and developed that summer by Nicole’s father, the Marquis de Faletans. Hall was presented with a copy and thought it ‘capital’.
The Villa Monney, Montreux, as seen from Lindsay Hall’s third-floor bedroom at the Hôtel Suisse. His friends the Faletans, who leased the villa from 1895 to 1897, used to gesticulate from their balcony to encourage him down.