April 13, 2008
The Source for Gowan's Name?
I’ve gathered from assorted sources that the artist that Dorothy L. Sayers modeled Gowan after, albeit distantly, was not a great favorite of hers. She made him stand-offish, ugly, snobbish and otherwise fairly unsympathetic. I noted the name “Gowan” associated with this most prosaic of businesses in town. (Click thumbnail for a larger image.) Did it exist at the time? Was Sayers tweaking the real life artist by picking for his character the name of a distinctly non-upper class establishment? Not at all sure but the possibility amuses me.
Filed under Literary Locations, Kirkcudbright, Dorothy L. Sayers and “The Five Red Herrings”.
Posted by eric at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2008
McWhan's Funeral Parlor, Site of?
I don’t recall that it is made clear in “The Five Red Herrings” whether Mr. McWhan runs his establishment out of Kirkcudbright or Gatehouse. Kirkcudbright being the larger, it may be fair to guess that such a business might be more likely located there. In any case, lacking any other good candidates, this location on Castle Street as the most likely.
Filed under Literary Locations, Kirkcudbright, Dorothy L. Sayers and “The Five Red Herrings”.
Posted by eric at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2008
MacLellan's Castle
“Wimsey made his way past the castle, up the little flight of steps…” In his walk from his lodgings to Waters’ studio, Wimsey passes “The Castle”. This is MacLellan’s Castle which is really a castellated mansion in the heart of Kirkcudbright. The picture here (click for larger image) is taken from just across the end of the High Street toward downtown.
Filed under Literary Locations, Kirkcudbright, Dorothy L. Sayers and “The Five Red Herrings”.
Posted by eric at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2008
Blue Gate Close?
“he had this year chosen to rent a small studio at the end of a narrow cobbled close, whose brilliant blue gate proclaimed it to the High Street as an abode of the artistically-minded.&rdquo — The Five Red Herrings.
Here’s my best guess at Wimsey’s lodgings in Kirkcudbright. The house fronts on the High Street just down and around the corner from the “McClellan Arms”. There’s a well kept close through the green, not blue, gate. In general the property appears to match the description in the book completely but for the color.
Filed under Literary Locations, Kirkcudbright, Dorothy L. Sayers and “The Five Red Herrings”.
Posted by eric at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2008
Kirkcudbright High Street
One of our favorite authors for many years has been Dorothy L. Sayers and one of our favorite works of hers is “The Five Red Herrings”. Most of her stories that take place outside London are set in contrived locations. However, in this case, the events described in her novel take place amongst the almost unaltered landscape in and around Kirkudbright. This naturally put this small town high on our list of places to visit when we finally made time for a visit to Scotland.
If you are a fan of the book and happen to find yourself in town, you can drop by one of the local bookstores and see if they have a copy of “Dorothy L. Sayers in Galloway”, a small monograph by a member of the Sayers Society. It details where in the area many of the locations in the book are to be found. If the bookstores do not have a copy, the stewartry museum, worth a quiet afternoon in its own right, does.
The pictures I post here are in the somewhat incoherent order in which we visited or discovered them, not the more logical order in which the appeared in the book. Haven’t the time to sort things to that level of detail I’m afraid. The first image is from right outside the inn we stayed at. This is the High Street running west-north-west toward the tollbooth and the Dee. The “McClellan Arms” is behind us on the right side of the street and Wimsey’s logings are around the corner ahead to the right.
Filed under Literary Locations, Travel, United Kingdom, Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway, Kirkcudbright, Dorothy L. Sayers and “The Five Red Herrings”.
Posted by eric at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2006
Fenchurch St. Paul
I’ve been an admirer of the Lord Peter novels by Dorothy L. Sayers for many years. Now that I’m living in London I’ve found that the bulk of her stories are set within a small radius around Russell Square. Indeed, many of her characters’ names come from streets in the area. So, in my copious free time I can hunt up the actual locations where these stories are set.
This first location we’ve set out deliberately to visit is actually nowhere near London. “The Nine Tailors” takes place in East Anglia. All of the geographic features in the book are fictionalized but it is widely thought that the model for the village church in Fenchurch St. Paul was the “Cathedral of the Marshes”, St. Clement’s church in Terrington St. Clement.
The village of Terrington St. Clement is only a few miles from King’s Lynn where we were staying. A quick drive across the flat landscape revealed the spire of a large church. Sure enough, St. Clement church is a giant for a small parish as is the “young cathedral” at the heart of the story of “The Nine Tailors”. There are numerous points of difference but I’m willing to buy that this is indeed the prototype for the village church in the book.
Filed under Literary Locations, Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey, Travel, UK, East Anglia and Terrington St. Clements.
Posted by eric at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)