Tower and Town, August 2019 (view the full edition)Richar Jeffries (1848-1887) And Marlborough - Part IRichard Jefferies, the Victorian writer, was born at Coate Farmhouse (now a Museum to his memory) situated just before the Coate Water roundabout as one approaches Swindon. Best known for his nature writings, such as Wild Life in a Southern County, The Gamekeeper at Home, and Round About a Great Estate, he also wrote a boys' adventure book, Bevis, and a remarkable apocalyptic novel, After London, which imagines the flooding of the Thames Valley following an unspecified disaster that has destroyed London and dammed the Thames. A "spiritual autobiography", The Story of My Heart, divides opinion as much as Marmite is reputed to do; and he also wrote a series of novels of varying quality. Jefferies spent much of his childhood roaming the downs between Marlborough and Swindon, and thought nothing of walking 20 to 30 miles a day. It was from these walks, and the observations he recorded in his notebooks, that he drew the material for his many nature essays. Richard undoubtedly knew Marlborough well, but only rarely refers to it by name. In his novels it becomes "Overborough" - an appropriate name as it was a borough over the downs. Even the Marlborough Road from Coate to the new Commonhead roundabout was referred to in many of his works as the "Overborough Road". The first reference Jefferies makes to Marlborough in his writings was when he was looking for work as newspaper reporter having been off work ill - with the TB that later killed him so young. In a letter to his aunt of 1871 he says; "There remains a paper at Marlborough to which I applied. They were quite ready to employ me, but said they could give but a small price, quoting a sum which absolutely would not buy me a dinner once a week. This was no good." The paper was The Marlborough Times. Two other specific references are to Savernake Forest, which he knew well, and about which he wrote an essay titled: Marlborough Forest, in which he eulogises the beech trees. This is reprinted in Edward Thomas's The Hills and the Vale; and A Summer Day in Savernake Forest is republished in Landscape and Labour, collected by John Pearson. John Price |