Blytonesque Places

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Courtenay
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Courtenay »

It's definitely worth it, Number 6, if you come down to Sussex. Here's the National Trust page for the castle and more info about the audio adventure game (which is suitable for both children and adults - I enjoyed it so much that after completing it, I went back and played it again, following a different path!).

Now I'm wondering if any of the National Trust's properties or other stately English homes could stand in for the grand house in one of my very favourite Blyton books - Greylings Manor in The Treasure Hunters! :D Enid doesn't tend to go into finely detailed descriptions of buildings, but now I look back at the book (which I haven't read for a while), she does give us a good basic outline of Greylings Manor. (I only had the vaguest picture of it in my own imagination as a 6- or 7-year-old - growing up in Australia, I'd never seen any kind of stately home in my life! :lol: )
The car turned into a drive between two big gate-posts. On the top of each sat a stone eagle....

The car ran up a winding drive and stopped before a lovely old house. It was long and rather low, with very tall chimneys. The windows shone with leaded panes, and the sides of the house came out to form a sunny courtyard, in which walked some white fantail pigeons.

(The Treasure Hunters, chapter one)
We're also told that "The old house glowed red in the sunshine", which suggests it's built of brick, or is otherwise reddish (perhaps red-brown) in colour.

Do we know of a real house Enid saw that may have inspired Greylings Manor - or did the description just bubble up from her fertile imagination? Or is there a manor that resembles Greylings near you? :D
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by number 6 »

Many thanks for the links, Courtenay. I'll certainly give it a whirl if I get the chance this Summer. The Castle ilooks very interesting, & the audio adventure game looks like fun, too! :D
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Courtenay wrote:I'm wondering if any of the National Trust's properties or other stately English homes could stand in for the grand house in one of my very favourite Blyton books - Greylings Manor in The Treasure Hunters! :D Enid doesn't tend to go into finely detailed descriptions of buildings, but now I look back at the book (which I haven't read for a while), she does give us a good basic outline of Greylings Manor....
The car turned into a drive between two big gate-posts. On the top of each sat a stone eagle....

The car ran up a winding drive and stopped before a lovely old house. It was long and rather low, with very tall chimneys. The windows shone with leaded panes, and the sides of the house came out to form a sunny courtyard, in which walked some white fantail pigeons.
...We're also told that "The old house glowed red in the sunshine", which suggests it's built of brick, or is otherwise reddish (perhaps red-brown) in colour.

Do we know of a real house Enid saw that may have inspired Greylings Manor - or did the description just bubble up from her fertile imagination?
When she was in her late teens/twenties, Enid Blyton used to go and stay with the Hunt family at Seckford Hall, a fifteenth-century mansion in Woodbridge, Suffolk. The building was part-ruined but the Hunt family (who were friends of the Attenboroughs) rented a portion of it and ran a farm. There was a "haunted" bedroom, a secret passage, a decaying banqueting hall, farm animals and beautiful countryside, so Enid would have been in her element. I don't know whether Seckford Hall inspired Greylings Manor in particular, but she must surely have had it at the back of her mind when describing old houses and mansions in a number of her stories.

Seckford Hall is now a luxury hotel:

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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Moonraker »

Our resident castlephile, Chrissie, obviously hasn't spotted this thread...
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by walter raleigh »

Too busy watching Puffovision, I bet. :roll:
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Julie2owlsdene wrote:Then as I leave the woods, I have to pass Owl's Dene, once more, and a farmhouse on my left, which could be Finniston Farm, or any of the farms in Enid's books.
Here are a few pictures I took of my Blyton walk today, so you can see what I mean.
Do you have any walks that you take where you could be in the pages of a Blyton Book?
Beautiful pics and an interesting thread, Julie! :)
We only walked there once, but it was very much like the area I would imagine Kirrin Bay would look like. It's along the Jurassic Coast on the Isle of Purbeck where parts of "Five on a Treasure Island" have been filmed in 1957.
Scroll down to the 29th pic and below.
http://www.enidblyton.net/yahoo/showinfo.php?user=34" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Julie2owlsdene wrote:When I walk Morgan our dog, in the woods below my home, I always feel I could be inside the pages of a Blyton book.
I have to pass a large house, with iron gates, and for me, that is Owl's Dene, despite the name on the wall.
May I ask where you took these lovely pics? Was it in Cornwall?
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

John Pickup wrote: But the nearest Blyton place to me is the village of Blyton which lies 5 miles north of where I live. I must take some photos of the place someday.
Would love to see them, John!
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

John Pickup wrote:When we holiday in Devon...
Have you ever been to Wonwell Beach at Erme Mouth near Kingsbury, south of Bigbury-by-the-Sea in Devon?
When I stood in line at a tourist office in Salcombe in 1995 in order to ask for the filming locations of FOATI, an older lady behind me told me that it was filmed at Wonwell Beach which later turned out to be wrong. But thanks to her information I ended up finding the most incredible beach in Europe. It's a river in a deep wooded valley which flows into the ocean. Shortly before the Erme reaches the ocean there is a wide beach with two very old towers on both sides of the river (they might have held a chain hundreds of years ago).
In the little river several sail boats are anchored. A very peaceful and breath-takingly beautiful area.
I was there 3 times and my husband was charmed by it, too.
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Moonraker wrote:There's a butterfly farm near Sherborne, Dorset. I used to sell there and always thought of Billycock Hill.
Nigel, thanks for mentioning Sherborne. We found it by chance in 2008 on my birthday weekend while desperately searching for a tea room which has scones and Cream Tea. After we found one which had one scone left, we discovered a beautiful church (looked more like a cathedral) where a choir was singing and a TV team was filming inside the church. It was an unforgettable day.
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Courtenay wrote:...and I'd always think of Peter and Janet's cave adventure in At Seaside Cottage. (No, we didn't have Scamper to swim for help for us - we just had to scramble over a lot of wet, slippery rocks!)
Our own - The Caves beach, Bunurong Marine Park, Inverloch
(you see what I mean about the tide coming in!)
That must have been frightening to climb over those slippery rocks.
Love the Soper illustrations in the cave that you posted. :)
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Julie2owlsdene wrote:There are quite a number of great caves along the rugged Cornish coast, which always look so appealing to go adventuring in, but some of them are dangerous as the warning signs say.
The Lizard Peninsula (Cornwall?) has some not very deep caves and I felt very reminded of the FF when we explored them.
Supposedly there are some caves on Guernsey, but we were unable to locate them even though we were on that beach :(.
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Courtenay wrote: I'm hoping to visit Cornwall later this year, but will try not to get stuck in any caves!!
Courtenay, if you visit the Lizard Peninsul;a at low tide, you won't get stuck. The coast line is very rocky (hope that's the right term) just like in the FF. Bring your camera, it's one of the prettiest spots I've visited in Cornwall. It's also the most southern tip of the UK.
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I was reminded of The Valley of Adventure by two waterfalls I've been to - the first in Flam in Norway, and the second in Imouzzer Ida Outanane in Morocco:
Quite an impressive waterfall, Anita!
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Re: Blyton Places Near You

Post by Chrissie777 »

Courtenay wrote:Today I visited Ightham Mote, a wonderful ancient manor house (owned by the National Trust) not far from where I live.
I also had a lovely walk in the bluebell wood in the grounds while I was there today.
Courtenay, if you ever come close to Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, visit Llanhydrock House.
After you'll have parked your car, you walk through a bluebell wood (May is the best time), then you'll reach the famous gate house and behind that you walk to the actual Llanhydrock House which has a Cream Tea place :).
http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhot ... gland.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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