Blyton Locations

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timv
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by timv »

There isn't any lake near Dartmoor Prison,at least apart from later reservoirs built after Enid's time, but for any Malcom Saville fans there is the scenery used by him in the 'Lone Pine' books 'Saucers over the Moor' and 'Where's My Girl' which are set at real-life Prince Hall, on the road from Princetown East to Dartmeet and called by him 'King's Holt'. Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor has a ruined farm, though not a house the size of the fictional 'Two Trees'.
I assume that the fact that Enid has the children travel quite a long way to 'Mystery Moor' means that she was thinking of it as not near Kirrin or their schools, so Hartland Moor near Corfe Castle is only a partial inspiration despite the ruined ''quarry railway' line (now a cycle track which I have followed) there. Also, the 'gypsies' ancestors are presumed to have thrown the disappeared Bartles off the cliffs into the sea - one of the most chilling moments in a Famous Five book though the brothers were clearly unpleasant - and this fits Exmoor, which is close to the sea and has high cliffs, better than any Dorset site. The mists that come in from the sea would be close at Exmoor and are not at Hartland, where the sea is c. 6 miles away.
I have been chasing up a clue that a renovated Victorian sailing-ship, which would be similar in apperance to the illustrations by Eileen Soper of George's ancestor's ship, was stranded on a beach in South Devon near Bantham/ Thurlestone for some months (if not longer)in the 1930s. As it was partly iron, it did not deteriorate quickly - as George's ancestor's ship is still 'in place' though rotting nearly a year after it blew onto Kirrin Island (in 'Five Run Away Together'). Given that I was told many years ago on a South Devon camping holiday that Enid had stayed at a hotel nearby to play golf, I do wonder if Enid heard about this story and it gave her an idea for the series? But I doubt if it will ever be proved.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by sayantani »

So many interesting things still to find in Enid's writing..imagine even now how fired we all are by her superb descriptions to think where it was set!for some reason I always thought Caravan had a North England setting..Though Devon is normally not associated with her books, I guess you may have a point Timv.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Chrissie777 »

timv wrote: I have been chasing up a clue that a renovated Victorian sailing-ship, which would be similar in apperance to the illustrations by Eileen Soper of George's ancestor's ship, was stranded on a beach in South Devon near Bantham/ Thurlestone for some months (if not longer)in the 1930s. As it was partly iron, it did not deteriorate quickly - as George's ancestor's ship is still 'in place' though rotting nearly a year after it blew onto Kirrin Island (in 'Five Run Away Together'). Given that I was told many years ago on a South Devon camping holiday that Enid had stayed at a hotel nearby to play golf, I do wonder if Enid heard about this story and it gave her an idea for the series? But I doubt if it will ever be proved.
Tim, I just tried to find out in vain (in Wiki) WHEN exactly the first British ships were built using iron. From what I found so far it sounds as if they were built from the 19th century on.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by number 6 »

If you take into consideration the era when Enid visited the Purbecks, then you'd be surprised how vast the Moorland/heathland actually was. There wouldn't have been intrusions like modern trunk roads, roundabouts, etc, to eat up big areas of heathland. The area would've certainly looked bigger, with Godlingston Heath, Hartland moor & Creech Heath more or less joined up. It is still possible to walk quite a distance over this terrain & only having to cross a lane/road every so often! So, I think the place(s) certainly could've supported the Hike adventure quite easily! :D
Last edited by number 6 on 07 Jun 2016, 11:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Chrissie777 »

timv wrote: Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor has a ruined farm, though not a house the size of the fictional 'Two Trees'.
I've been to Dozmary Pool, not knowing that it might have inspired EB to write "Five on a Hike together". :cry:
As you probably know, Dozmary Pool is linked to King Artus' sword Excalibur.
Years ago when Dozmary Pool dried out, historians were digging and trying to find the sword, but didn't succeed.
It's just an old legend.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Rob Houghton »

Dozemary Pool is in my opinion nothing like the pool described in 'Five On A Hike' - the only resemblance to it is that it's a pool! In Hike the pool is surrounded by trees and certainly not on a moor. Dozemary Pool is very wide open in the middle of a moor, and not really all that big, from what I can recall. :-)
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by timv »

Chrissie, with regards to ironclad ships I believe they were first built as an experiment in the 1840s, most famously by the engineer Isembard Kingdom Brunel who you can look up on Wikipedia - the 'Great Western', 'Great Eastern' etc. These were huge ships designed to carry as much cargo (both perishable and non-perishable goods and passengers) across the Atlantic as possible for commercial reasons. The main museum for these is at Bristol docks, where one of Brunel's ships - abandoned as a hulk in the Falkland Islands - was brought back to the UK and restored The first ironclad warships, with iron plates riveted to wooden hulls - more difficult to be sunk by enemy shells than wooden ships - followed in the 1850s, and the first one, the 'HMS Warrior' (qv), is preserved at Portsmouth dockyard; I visited it in 2002.
The ship that ran aground off the Devon coast , West of Bigbury on Sea and Burgh Island, pre-1939 was a smaller and later 'pleasure craft' , not much bigger than a sloop - I presume, fitted with iron 'bands' to hold the wood together so it would not rot so quickly in the water. I saw a photo of it in a newspaper years ago, but infuriatingly cannot remember its name or that of the beach; the only registers of wrecks I could find in a library only covered Lyme Bay, to the East, and Cornwall. To get an idea of what it looked like, you can look up the (larger) tea-clipper 'Cutty Sark' on the internet and imagine something about half-size. Another late Victorian clipper, the 'Herzogen Cecilie', ran aground off Hope Cove near Thurlestone in 1939 (I visited the site on holiday there in the late 1960s), but I think this was probably too late a date (and too big a ship) for Enid to have used it as a idea unless she saw it in a newspaper.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Moonraker »

Rob Houghton wrote: I disagree that it bears no resemblance. I immediately thought of Gloomy Water when I visited Blue Pool!
You're missing my point. The USP of Blur Pool is the fact that is has a different colour to a 'normal' lake/pool. The Blue Pool at Furzebrook constantly varies in colour. Very fine clay in suspension in the water diffracts light in different ways, producing a spectrum of colour sometimes green sometimes turquoise. It is this description of Blue Pool that fits with the pool in Trouble. Gloomy Water has no such "strange" colour.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Rob Houghton »

I do agree - I was just talking 'location'. I'm sure most places Enid knew were mixed up and altered and 'improved upon'! :-)

However, how Dozemary Pool can even be considered as inspiration for the pool in Hike, I'm not sure, lol...unless Enid took inspiration simply because it was a pool of water!!!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Chrissie777 »

timv wrote:The ship that ran aground off the Devon coast , West of Bigbury on Sea and Burgh Island, pre-1939 was a smaller and later 'pleasure craft' , not much bigger than a sloop - I presume, fitted with iron 'bands' to hold the wood together so it would not rot so quickly in the water. I saw a photo of it in a newspaper years ago, but infuriatingly cannot remember its name or that of the beach; the only registers of wrecks I could find in a library only covered Lyme Bay, to the East, and Cornwall. To get an idea of what it looked like, you can look up the (larger) tea-clipper 'Cutty Sark' on the internet and imagine something about half-size. Another late Victorian clipper, the 'Herzogen Cecilie', ran aground off Hope Cove near Thurlestone in 1939 (I visited the site on holiday there in the late 1960s), but I think this was probably too late a date (and too big a ship) for Enid to have used it as a idea unless she saw it in a newspaper.
Tim, at Wonwell Beach just a little southwest of Bigbury/Burgh Island, Devon, a small river runs into the sea, maybe it happened there? It's the most picturesque beach I've ever seen in Europe. Even Corsica doesn't have a more beautiful beach (and I've been to every Corsican beach).

I would have to check my FOATI copy once more to find out during which century the Kirrin sail ship of George's great-great grandfather sunk. I thought it was in the 1700's. That's why I was wondering if ships were already iron clad in the 1700's, but Wikipedia didn't disclose that.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by KEVP »

I am looking at this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironclad_warship" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It says that using iron as the primary material of ship's hulls began in the 1830s. I don't think you will find any ships being ironclad before then.

The ship HMS Britannia (launched 1762) was nicknamed "Old Ironsides", as was the USS Constitution (launched 1797), but they were not really made of Iron, it was a poetic exaggeration for how tough these wooden ships were.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by Chrissie777 »

KEVP wrote:It says that using iron as the primary material of ship's hulls began in the 1830s. I don't think you will find any ships being ironclad before then.
The ship HMS Britannia (launched 1762) was nicknamed "Old Ironsides", as was the USS Constitution (launched 1797), but they were not really made of Iron, it was a poetic exaggeration for how tough these wooden ships were.
That's what I thought. It all started in the 1800's.
I've visited Old Ironsides :). You have to duck all the time as sailors were much shorter and ceiling beams much lower way back then.
It's close to where we live.
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Re: Blyton Locations

Post by KEVP »

I'm not sure that sailors really were that much shorter. They just sort of moved around like monkeys, from what I understand.
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