C.S Lewis and other writers who took inspiration from Worcestershire

With its rolling hills and beautiful buildings, it’s unsurprising that the stunning county inspired the muse of so many notable poets and authors.

Here are six notable writers that whose novels and poems were inspired by Worcestershire:

Evelyn Waugh

Waugh was an London-born writer of novels, biographies and travel books.

One of his most famous works include the novel Brideshead Revisited, which follows the life and romances of protagonist Charles Ryder.

Madresfield Court and its former owners are widely thought to be the models for the stately home Brideshead and the Flyte family in the novel.

Madresfield Court

(Photo: Madresfield Court
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Philip Halling - geograph.org.uk/p/6265431)

The building was even selected for the Historic Houses Association's new literary trail, which included more than 40 homes across the country linked to famous writers.

Madresfield near Malvern is the home of the Lygon family, whose eldest sons took the title of Earl Beauchamp from 1815 until 1979.

Waugh met Hugh Lygon at Oxford in 1922 and they became close friends. It is thought that Waugh first came to know and love Madresfield Court, when one of Hugh's four sisters, Dorothy, invited him to stay for Christmas in 1931.

Waugh also wrote Black Mischief, his third book, published in 1932, while staying at Madresfield as a guest. It is believed an old nursery was converted into a writing room for him.

A.E. Housman

This notable poet and scholar grew up in Bromsgrove.

He is best known for creating his anthology of poems called ‘A Shropshire Lad’ which act as an allegory about growing up in the countryside.

In 1934, Houseman wrote:  ‘I am Worcestershire by birth but Shropshire is our western horizon, which makes me feel romantic about it.’

While many of his poems romanticise Shropshire, some of them are clearly influenced by our county.

Views to Bredon Hill

(Photo: View to Bredon Hill
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Philip Halling - geograph.org.uk/p/2400525) 

Bredon Hill is one poem from A Shropshire Lad and it details Houseman’s experiences of growing up near the hill, which is in the Vale of Evesham.

It’s a hill that Bredon would see in the distance on the way to school each day.

Four blue plaques placed around Bromsgrove to pay homage to the writer: on the side of Cooke’s House on the campus of Bromsgrove School, Housman Hall (the poet’s birthplace which is now also part of Bromsgrove School), on a wall outside the town’s Clock House, and at the bottom of a path up to St John’s Church.

There’s even a statue of the poet on Bromsgrove High Street.

J.R.R Tolkien

He may have been born in South Africa, but Tolkien spent some of his time Worcestershire’s countrysides.

He would regularly walk the Clentand Malvern Hills- which are said to be the inspiration behind some locations in his novels.

His Aunt Jane’s farm in the Worcestershire village of Dormston is widely regarded as the inspiration for Bag End, the home of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

(Facebook/ @TheHobbitUK)

Back in 1952, Tolkien paid a visit to an old friend who lived in Malvern.

According to a report in our sister paper the Malvern Gazette, publishers were refusing to print the book on which he had spent a decade and a half.

In an attempt to lift his gloom, Tolkien arrived at the home of George Sayer, who taught at Malvern College for many years.

They walked along the Malvern Hills and Tolkien compared them with his own creation, the White Mountains of Gondor.

According to a report in our sister paper the Malvern Gazette: “At night, to entertain him, Mr Sayer brought out a tape recorder, for Tolkien had never seen one before. He was fascinated and asked if he might record some of the poems in The Lord of the Rings to find out how they sound to other people. He recorded several long passages and, when he heard them played back, his confidence in the work returned.”

C.S Lewis

The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe writer studied at at Malvern College alongside fellow author C.S. Lewis.

Lewis and Tolkien used to meet in The Unicorn Pub and a plaque placed on the front of the inn by the Malvern Civic Society states: "At this inn C. S. LEWIS - Scholar and author of THE NARNIA CHRONICLES met frequently with literary and hill-walking friends".

The story goes that, on a snowy evening, when he had just left the Unicorn, Lewis was inspired by the sight of a Malvern gas lamp and this led directly to his account of a Narnian wood, close to the start of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, where a gas lamp post stands alone in the snow.

IT's also thought that the Malvern Hills helped to shape Lewis' overall vision of Narnia. 

Charles Dickens

A miniature portrait of Charles Dickens (Philip Mould And Company/PA)

It’s not the rolling hills and countryside views that are thought to have inspired Charles Dickens- instead, it’s thought that the rampant crime at the time could have been the inspiration for Oliver Twist.

Oliver Twist’s ‘The Artful Dodger’  could well have been based on 10-year-old alleged thief and gang leader Michael Condlie, believes Bob Blandford.

While Fagin, from the same book, bears a striking resemblance to a city cigar shop owner known as ‘Argus’ who is believed to have “harboured and encouraged” child criminals from his King Street business.

Bob Blandford, whose books include The Spike: Worcester City Police and Bob Backenforth’s Worcester Pubs: Then and Now, said: “It defies coincidence in many ways. Maybe I’m putting two and two together and getting five, but the evidence is there, it stacks up.

“Dickens was a roving political journalist at the time, who would have visited Worcester and more than likely took an interest in what was happening in court here.”

William Langland

William Langland’s 14th-century poem, Piers Plowman, was inspired by the Worcestershire hills.

Langland studied at Little Malvern Priory until his patron died of the Black Death - when Langland went to London.

(Photo: Malvern Priory Tower
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Colin Smith - geograph.org.uk/p/6656297)

While in London and living in poverty, Langland wrote Piers Plowman, which is set on the Malvern Hills on a May morning.

Some people thing the tower in the poem could have been the original Great Malvern Priory Tower and the dungeon that of the notorious Banbury chamber could have been inspired by the nearby village of Hanley Castle.