Following Barbara’s Footsteps

by Ellen Miller

© 2004, 2006 byThe Barbara Pym Society of North America

To Hilary, who created her own footsteps

2

ContentsPREFACE 4

A RESIDENTIAL CHRONOLOGY 5

“BARBARA PYM, NOVELIST, LIVED HERE” 6

“BARBARA PYM, WRITER, WORSHIPPED HERE” 18

PLACES BARBARA VISITED 26

SETTINGS IN PYM NOVELS 28

BARBARA PYM’S LONDON 29

3

PrefaceA Few Green Leaves is set in Oxfordshire; that is almost all we are told.

Barbara Pym’s style—economical, direct, never using a long word where a short one will do, relying above all on dialogue—has never included much by way of physical setting. If the reader pictures bosky vicarage gardens, sedate London offices (of anthropological societies), the suburbia of decayed expectations, it is all in the mind’s eye—the author has not told us about it. . . .

And if at times this seems a shortcoming, it is because we have come to expect a lot: the author has given us a particular and a total world and we want to relate it to the familiar and the general one. We want to specify the London landscapes obliquely hinted at, to set down Leonora and the characters of Quartet in Autumn in familiar streets and houses.

Penelope Lively in The Life and Work of Barbara Pymedited by Dale Salwak

As Ms. Lively notes, the unique world that Barbara Pym has left us only hints at London landscapes and the familiar streets and houses populated by Leonora, Letty, Jane, Wilmet and many other Pym personalities. A number of readers want to pinpoint specific locations in the novels as well as visit the places where Barbara lived, worked and worshiped. Some have already made “Pym pilgrimages” and have generously shared their findings and feelings.

It is the goal of this literary tour of Pym places to offer a small guide to those who want to set out on their own to find Piers’s flat on St Stephen’s Avenue or to follow Barbara’s footsteps across Hammersmith Bridge or the Suspension Bridge in Clifton.

A note about sources in the section on “Annotated Locations:” Quotations taken from Pym novels are followed in parentheses by the novel’s title. Quotations from Barbara Pym’s diary entries taken from A Very Private Eye are cited as follows: (BP, 1 February 1943). All other citations should be apparent.

Web addresses are correct as of August 2006, but such addresses have a habit of changing or disappearing.

I am greatly indebted to my fellow members of the Barbara Pym Society—Father Gabriel Myers, Hazel Bell, Marianna Stewart, Norma Munson, Christine Shuttleworth and Maureen Woolley—for sharing their information, photos, memorabilia and providing editing and proofreading skills. Special thanks to Tom Sopko for his information on churches and London maps. Thanks also go to Marcia Cohen for her formidable computer skills in preparing this guide.

Amendments to this guide from other Pym travelers would be very welcome.May your journeys into Barbara’s world bring you joy and a closer connection to

her.

Ellen MillerAugust 2006

4

A Residential ChronologyOswestry

72 Willow Street. Barbara Pym born here, 1913

Welsh Walls. Hilary Pym born here, 1916

Morda Lodge, on the outskirts of town, south, on the way to Morda. The Pym family moved here to a large Georgian house around 1919.

HuytonBarbara attended Liverpool College, 1925-1931.

OxfordBarbara attended St Hilda’s College, 1931-1934, and remained in Oxford off and on until 1936.

London27 Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square, W.1 (a bedsit), October 1938

Bristol“The Coppice” (now called “Leigh House”) in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol, overlooking the Suspension Bridge.

December 1941-43

LondonPimlico – 108 Cambridge Street, SW 1, with Hilary, February 1946

Barnes – 47 Nassau Road, SW 13, with Hilary, 1950

Queen’s Park – 40 Brooksville Avenue, NW 6, with Hilary, 1961-72

Marylebone – 32 Balcombe Street, NW 1. Flat in London during the week, Finstock on weekends, 1972 to July 1974.

Finstock, OxfordshireBarn Cottage, with Hilary, until Barbara’s death in January 1980.

5

“Barbara Pym, Novelist, Lived Here”1

Oswestry, 1913-1938 (www.oswestry.com)Oswestry is a small market town in Shropshire, near the Welsh border. The population in the 1920s was just under 10,000 and so it was a microcosm of English provincial life, where the social classes were neatly stratified and people knew exactly what their place was in the scheme of things. (A Lot to Ask)

Hilary Pym Walton at Morda Lodge, 1998

Morda Lodge was a large, square, brick-built house with an imposing front entrance. As you came into the hall, the handsome drawing room was on the left and the dining room on the right with the nursery behind it . . . On the first floor were the family’s bedrooms (Irene and Frederic and Barbara at the front and Hilary at the back) . . . . This house was to be Barbara’s home for over twenty years. (A Lot to Ask)

Liverpool College, Huyton (1925-1931)At the age of twelve, Barbara was sent to Liverpool College, Huyton, where Hilary joined her three years later. Huyton was a conventional school, with firm discipline and a strong religious background . . . Unlike many authors, Barbara does not seem to have been greatly influenced by her schooldays. She was quite happy at school and made friends easily. She was a steady but not spectacular pupil, her only position of authority being chairman of the Literary Society. (A Lot to Ask)

1 Plaque at 40 Brooksville Avenue, Queen’s Park. The full text reads, “Barbara Pym, novelist, lived here 1960-1972.”

6

Liverpool College for Girls was later known simply as Huyton College. The College, which opened in 1894, closed almost 0ne hundred years later. The main college building, which is adjacent to Huyton Station, is now in use as a residential home. (From http://history.knowsley.gov.uk)

My heart sank as I recognised the familiar landmarks. I could almost imagine myself a schoolgirl again, arriving at the station on a wet September evening for the autumn term and smelling the antiseptic smell of the newly scrubbed cloakrooms. (Excellent Women)

Oxford (1931-1936)[References to Oxford and the University of Oxford are too numerous to cite here. Please refer to A Very Private Eye and A Lot to Ask for specific locations. Also, A Few Green Leaves, An Academic Question, Crampton Hodnet, Civil to Strangers, Jane and Prudence, and several of the short stories have strong Oxford connections. See how many locations you can find! Two personal favorites appear below.]

Rupert Gladow wrote: On Sunday at 4 o’clock you be at the High end of Queens Lane and I’ll be at the Broad end of New College Lane and when four strikes by St Mary’s we’ll both walk down and meet where the two lanes meet. (A Lot to Ask)

They walked about Oxford and into the Botanical Gardens, where Julian plucked a spray of orchids—pinky-mauve with purple centres like velvet—and presented them to her with a romantic flourish. (A Lot to Ask)

Bristol (Clifton) (1941-43)Barbara joined Hilary in Bristol at The Coppice [now called Leigh House], a large house in Leigh Woods on the hill above Clifton Suspension Bridge (www.clifton-suspension-bridge.org.uk) . . . . “walking back over the Suspension Bridge, lovely in the moonlight.” (A Lot to Ask)

7

The Coppice Suspension Bridge

Bristol Walk by Maureen Woolley

8

Barbara describes the “Pre-Raphaelite” tomb: “A square box-like affair supported by angels at the corners, and the angels are beautifully Rossetti with flowing hair parted in the middle.” (BP, 1 February 1943) It is still there although the church shell has gone. (Maureen Woolley, Pym Society Member)

Pre-Raphaelite Tomb

The Royal West of England Academy became the Censorship Office during the War and Barbara describes looking “out over the stone lions, towards the Victoria Rooms” as you still can today—tea is now served on the balcony. (Maureen Woolley, Pym Society member)

Royal West of England Academy

9

London

Portman Square: 27 Upper Berkeley Street, W1 (bedsit) (October 1938)It is such a nice change being in London and our rooms are very comfortable and near everywhere—just by Marble Arch and Hyde Park. (BP letter to Elsie, 31 October 1938)

To receive a love letter and to be eating honey on a June morning (in a bed-sitting room in London). This was in 1939—me in Upper Berkeley Street. The letter was from Jay and the honey from Jock (Miel d’Hymette) from Athen. (BP, 10 October 1954)

27 Upper Berkeley Street

Pimlico: 108 Cambridge Street, SW 1 (1946-49)[I] have a flat in Pimlico (rather nice, don’t you think?) which I share with Hilary, it is really very nice as we have a lot of things from Oswestry (BP letter to Henry Harvey, 9 February 1946).

I began to wonder what could have brought a naval officer and his wife to this shabby part of London, so very much the ‘wrong’ side of Victoria Station, so definitely not Belgravia, for which I had a sentimental affection, but which did not usually attract people who looked like Mrs. Napier. (Excellent Women)

10

How astonished we were to discover that Barbara’s actual address was right across the street from St Gabriel’s noble spire! I had always imagined Mildred’s much-loved view from further down the square and just glimpsing the church in the distance. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

I could just see the church spire through the trees in the square . . . . There were two churches in the district, but I had chosen St Mary’s rather than All Souls’, not only because it was nearer but because it was ‘High’. (Excellent Women)

108 Cambridge Street

Standing on the corner in front of the Cambridge Street house and looking across at St Gabriel’s Pimlico, I felt as though I had stepped into the middle of Excellent Women. (Marianna Stewart, Pym Society member)

Barnes: 47 Nassau Road, SW13 (1949-61)The flat, though self-contained, was the converted upper floor of a house and the owner, a very ‘refined’ lady, whose main preoccupation was with her appearance (like Mrs. Beltane, ‘scented and jingling with bracelets’), lived on the ground floor. Still, Barbara and Hilary each had a bedroom and there was a good-sized sitting room, a kitchen and bathroom, and a loft . . . . The river was just at the top of the road and it was pleasant to walk along the towpath on summer evening. (A Lot to Ask)

11

Walking over the beautifully scroll-worked Hammersmith Bridge gave me the chance to think of Tom and Catherine walking—and arguing—enroute to Sunday afternoon tea at the Swans. On the way there is a charming little park with a duck-pond. The front garden of 47 Nassau Road is entirely bricked over, but there are carefully tended vines and pot-plants. I could imagine Mrs. Beltane, scented and braceleted, tending them with a watering can in the shape of a swan: image for an unfinished poem. I thought of the young men, Bear and Squirrel, living a few doors up from the Pyms: those two and their little dog against the world. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

The last time [Deirdre] had been kissed by the river was when she was with Bernard after her first meeting with Tom, she remembered . . . . Poor Bernard, supposing he were to come along now. But it was usually in the daytime that she saw him here, coaching the [Barnes] sports club eight, riding his bicycle and shouting the esoteric rowing language through a megaphone. (Less Than Angels)

47 Nassau Road

12

We sat in the car parked outside that very house thinking of Dulcie Mainwaring’s expedition to view Aylwin’s mother-in-law’s house in Deodar Grove . . . . [We] found Deodar Road in nearby Hammersmith, though no ‘particularly fine deodar’ in any front garden. We saw what must have been the ‘gateposts ornamented with stone lions’ that delighted Catherine Oliphant on her visit to Deirdre Swan. ‘Poor things, their noses and paws are all worn down.’ So, indeed, they were. (Hazel Bell, Green Leaves, July 1999)

[Aylwin] got out by the next-door house, the one with the stone squirrel in the garden . . . . But the place on the rockery where it had stood for so long was bare—the squirrel had disappeared. (No Fond Return of Love)

Queen’s Park: 40 Brooksville Avenue, NW6 (1961-72)Brooksville Avenue was in a quiet neighbourhood, and at the end of the road there was a little park . . . Number 40 was part of a terrace of small Edwardian houses, substantially built and with fair-sized rooms. Because the downstairs front room was rather gloomy, they made their sitting-room upstairs (with a good view of comings and goings in the road outside). This house also had a garden at the back, rather small and overshadowed, but with a fine grapevine growing against the wall of the house (A Lot to Ask)

In the flower shop at Ludgate Circus—a queue of people—but they are all women! (BP, St Valentine’s Day, 1961)

40 Brooksville Avenue

There were wide manicured lawns, beautiful flower beds, little boys playing soccer near a banner saying, ‘Sponsored by the Corporation of London.’ We saw

13

old men on constitutionals, young mothers with strollers, and other inhabitants of the Larkin Poem, ‘Toads Revisited.’ (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

This was the very fringe of [Mark’s] parish, that part that would never become residentially ‘desirable’ because it was too near the railway, and many of the gaunt houses had been taken over by families of West Indians . . . . On the extreme eastern boundary of the parish, however, where the church and vicarage were rather oddly placed, a number of small terrace houses had been bought up by speculative builders, gutted, modernised, and sold at high prices to people who wanted small houses that were almost in town but could not afford the more fashionable districts of Islington, St John’s Wood or Hampstead. (An Unsuitable Attachment)

But [Queen’s Park] was not the kind of station that has taxis waiting outside it, and the two ladies were forced to walk through the crowded streets, now full of people doing their weekend shopping. (An Unsuitable Attachment)

Marylebone: 32 Balcombe Street, NW 1 (1972-74)I am now very well established in two places. I have been very lucky to find a nice little room in the house of friends of friends, and I stay here Monday to Friday. Balcombe Street goes up from Dorset Square and is between Baker Street and Marylebone stations. Indeed as I lie in bed in the early morning I can sometimes hear the station announcer from Marylebone booming away about something. (BP letter to Philip Larkin, 24 October 1972)

32 Balcombe Street

14

Finstock, Oxfordshire (www.finstock.org.uk )

Barn Cottage, 1972-80We like Finstock very much and the people have been very friendly. It is not a beautiful village but so near all those lovely places like Minster Lovell, Burford, Swinbrook (grave of Unity Mitford in the churchyard), Westwell, etc. etc. Our house (cottage) is in the olde bit and was originally a 17th century barn, converted about six years ago. (BP letter to Philip Larkin, 24 October 1972)

Barn Cottage

The sofa pattern and the hearth are familiar from the photograph in the biography. There is a cat purring on a rug, and a ‘Whiskas’ box among the kitchen canisters. . . . The sitting room is lined with books, prints, photographs—neat and cosy. The chief physical memories I carry away are a complete set of Elizabeth Taylor’s novels, a handsome formal photograph of Barbara herself, and another intriguingly mysterious one of a handsome man in military uniform. I learned, much later, that this was Henry Fiennes Crampton, the paternal grandfather unearthed by Hilary’s genealogical research. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

Finstock is described by Hilary as a “grotty little village.” She is right. Although it missed out on British quaintness and charm, it is the setting for A Few Green Leaves, the final novel. It is a quite ordinary village of 800 residents whose stone houses, farms and church are the color of English digestive biscuits. Barbara’s

15

and Hilary’s cottage is on the main road, at the foot of a hill. (Ellen Miller, Green Leaves, November 2002)

Hilary Pym Walton at Barn Cottage, 1983

A Pym admirer, Chet DeFonso of Marquette, Michigan, has posted a lovely account of his visit to Finstock in 1991 that included a cup of tea with Hilary. It appears on the VirtualTourist.com web site at http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/52c47/. The photo on the following page, of Barbara’s grave in the Finstock churchyard, is taken from the web site with permission.

16

Barbara Pym’s grave bears the inscription: “Barbara Pym, Writer, 2nd June 1913-11th January 1980.”

17

“Barbara Pym, Writer, Worshipped Here”2

Barbara was a parishioner at the following churches:

Oswestry

St. Oswald’s Church, Upper Brook Street (www.oswestryparishchurch.org)

Irena was assistant organist at St Oswald’s and Frederic sang in the choir. Like most of their generation, Barbara and Hilary graduated from the afternoon children’s service to Matins and Evensong every Sunday. Full participation in church fetes, jumble sales and church outings was a natural and enjoyable part of their lives from earliest childhood. . . .There was, too, a succession of curates, one of whom in particular was worshipped from afar by Hilary. When he came to tea on a winter afternoon, his combinations, like Mr Donne’s, did in fact show, tucked into his socks. “Can your love stand that?” Barbara demanded of her sister. Apparently it could and curates frequently came to supper. . . .St Oswald’s had featured in Civil to Strangers, where the rector preached his splendid sermon about Jacobean embroidery. It was also the Archdeacon’s church, where Harriet and Belinda worshipped. . . .” (A Lot to Ask)

2 Legend on plaque at Holy Trinity Church, Finstock, where Barbara lived from 1974-80, and where she is buried.

18

London

St. Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square, Pimlico SW 1 (www.st-gabriels.com)

This mid-Victorian (1854) near-Gothic church became dear to Barbara, and is dear to us because it is St Mary’s, the church which . . . plays an important part in Excellent Women. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

I could just see the church spire through the trees in the square. Now, when they were leafless, it looked beautiful, springing up among the peeling stucco fronts of the houses, prickly, Victorian-gothic, hideous inside, I suppose, but very dear to me. (Excellent Women)

The vestry was a gloomy untidy place, containing two rows of chairs, a grand piano and a cupboard full of discarded copies of Hymns Ancient and Modern – we used the English Hymnal, of course – vases, bowls and brasses in need of cleaning. (Excellent Women)

We walked through the vestry which Mildred described as gloomy and untidy and walked into the large nave. The altar was beautifully vested. There were ‘Romish statues’ – some wearing actual clothing – and, as in Italy, some artificial flowers at small shrines. We also noticed confessionals, but on a Wednesday morning, there were no clergy lying in wait for the sensitive consciences of Anglo-Catholic ladies. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

19

St. Michael’s and All Angels, Barnes Bridge, 25 Glebe Road, SW13(www.stmichaelbarnes.org)

A rather dull late 19th-century building which provided the background to services in a sound and advanced Western Catholic tradition. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

Barbara also found a highly congenial church, St Michael’s, Barnes Bridge, where, in the fullness of time, she became a member of the Parochial Church Council. (A Lot to Ask)

With the help of several passers-by I found my way along the river to St Michael’s Church which is in a quiet street and has a lovely garden. The large gleaming blue signboard showed that parishioners get full Catholic privileges and at least one traditional Prayerbook Mass each week, but that the assistant priest and curate are women. To me, this seems a nicely balanced profile. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

St. Laurence the Martyr, Chevening Road SW1 (now replaced by flats) (also called St. Laurence Brondesbury, by Robert Smith)

Members of the congregation became familiar figures and especially the hard-working organists whom [Hilary and Barbara] privately christened ‘Bear,’ and who was transmuted into Bill Coleman of St Luke’s, Father Thames’s church in A Glass of Blessings. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

“Are you a ‘regular worshipper’ at St Luke’s, as they say?”“Yes, I’ve been coming here for a few months. You see, the church nearest to us is very Low and I couldn’t bear that.”“No, I imagine not,” said Piers (A Glass of Blessings)

20

Our church has become ‘redundant’ and been closed! There’s something I should like to write about. Now I can go around from church to church with no particular attachment. Neither my sister nor I really want to get involved anywhere at the moment, having had enough of all that to last a long time. (BP letter to Philip Larkin, 7 November 1971)

The Church of St Laurence the Martyr, formerly on Chevening Road, had been declared redundant and closed despite the efforts of faithful members like the Pyms. So we finally decided that the modern flats on St Laurence Close must have been the end of the Pyms’ Sunday morning car chase tracking their intriguing neighbor Bear in his Hillman Husky. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

Finstock, Oxfordshire

Holy Trinity Church (www.oxfordshirechurches.info/Finstock.htm)On the wall towards the front, where Barbara usually sat, is a modest and tasteful grey granite oval plaque. The inscription reads, ‘Barbara Pym, Writer, Worshipped Here,’ with her dates. Near the chancel step is a mahogany lectern; neither bird nor brass, but well-polished wood can be very rewarding, as Miss Lee knew. Under

its Bible is a tiny brass marker which says that Barbara ‘organised the Epistle readers’ in her eight years at Finstock. The plaque and the lectern were given as memorials by her admirers in 1984. (Father Gabriel Myers in Green Leaves, July 1999)

They noticed a tiny village church, where some of the ‘excellent women’ of the congregation were holding a ‘coffee morning.’ “Teen [Haskell], Hazel [Bell] and I stopped for a rummage sale/coffee morning, exactly as described in so many of Pym’s novels,” Norma [Munson] said. (Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, 8 March 2002)

21

Hilary Pym Walton and Mark-Daniel Kirby, Trinity Church, 1998

The church is not very high (‘Series 2’) but there is quite an enthusiastic congregation of people who have come fairly recently to the neighbourhood. Hilary and I are a bit jaded and cynical about things like bazaars but try not to show it. Like most country parishes the Vicar has 3 churches to cope with (not like the old palmy days of which I write in Some Tame Gazelle when every village had its own vicar or rector). (BP letter to Philip Larkin, 24 October 1971)

22

Other London churches connected with Barbara Pym and her novels:

All Saints, Margaret Street, W1 (www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk)

The quartet work in Bloomsbury and Edwin’s church, All Saints, Margaret Street, is a well-known one and very high church with loads of incense. I visited it myself about four months ago for a recital and rededication of the organ. It is so polychromatic that it was like having a migraine to music. (Marion Burgin in Barbara Pym online discussion group)

Edwin didn’t like change, and now that Gamage’s had been pulled down it was a relief to do his lunchtime church crawl, though even the Church, the Dear old C. of E., was not immune to change. Sometimes he would slip in for a prayer or a look round and a read of the parish magazine . . . but mostly he studied the notice boards to see what was offered in the way of services and other activities. (Quartet in Autumn)

How splendid All Saints Margaret Street is – close to 200 people there! I reckon when you compare it with the five to ten at St Laurence’s it hardly seems to be the same religion (BP, 22 August 1971)

All Saints, Talbot Road, Notting Hill, W11This church had suffered from bombing and like St Alban’s, it too was a shrine to advanced Anglo-Catholicism. The vicar was the redoubtable Father Twisaday, whose likeness as Father Thames appears in A Glass of Blessings, which also contains a somewhat evocative clergy-house . . . (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

Father Thames, a tall scraggy old man with thick white hair and a beaky nose, was standing by the door, talking in rather too loud social voice to various individuals . . . (A Glass of Blessings)

“All these old houses do have basements,” said Mrs. Beamish, as if Father Thames were deliberately concealing that of the clergy house.“But the house is not so old—that is another surprise! It was built in 1911 and was never intended as a clergy house at all. Its first occupant had five children!”None of us seemed able to comment suitably on this. (A Glass of Blessings)

Church of the Annunciation, Bryanston Square, Marylebone/Marble Arch, W1[Bob and I] go into the Church of the Annunciation at Marble Arch—so near the Cumberland Hotel. Lofty but impressive with the lingering smell of incense. Fine red brocade-covered sedilia and a marble side-table—did the vicar bring them back from Italy? (BP, 30 April 1955)

23

Holy Innocents, Paddenswick Road, Hammersmith, W6

Here we attended the induction as its new vicar of Father Sean McAteer, formerly curate of All Saints, Notting Hill. The induction in A Glass of Blessings of the languid and charming Father Marius Ransome owes much to this. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

The Bishop’s address was short and to the point. He told his congregation that last week he had inducted a priest as vicar of a very beautiful old church in the diocese. The church we were in this afternoon was not beautiful, but we must not think that beauty was everything. It was not nothing—he certainly would not go so far as to say that—but it was not so very much, not nearly so important as people imagined. (A Glass of Blessings)

St. Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 18 Brooke Street, EC1 (www.stalbans-holborn.com)

This famous church was a centre for the practice in London of the ‘full Anglo-Catholic faith.’ Destroyed by German bombs in 1941, it was the temporary church amid the ruins to which Barbara found her way in 1955 . . . . and where Mildred met Everard Bone. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

Mrs. Bonner was disgusted. “That talk about the Dies Irae,” she said, “that’s Roman Catholic, you know. It ought not to be allowed here.” (Excellent Women)

Outside the church is a courtyard . . . where I sit and read the parish magazine. Don’t quite like to smoke or read Proust. (BP, 15 July 1955)

St. Augustine’s Church, Kilburn Park Road, NW6A cathedral-like church in North London which became Neville Forbes’s church in No Fond Return of Love. (Robert Smith, Exploring London Churches with Barbara Pym)

[Dulcie] was glad that his parish was in an accessible part of London. Indeed, when she looked on a street map, she found that it was almost within walking distance, if one were wearing comfortable shoes, of where her Uncle Bertram and Aunt Hermione lived. She must make a point of going to tea with them soon, perhaps on a Sunday. Then it might be possible to go to the evening service at the church. She tried to picture the Reverend Neville Arthur Brandreth Forbes, but all she could see was Aylwin Forbes in a dog collar. (No Fond Return of Love)

St. James’s Church, Picadilly, W1 (www.st-james-piccadilly.org)It was my custom to attend the lunchtime services held at St Ermin’s on Wednesdays. The church had been badly bombed and only one aisle could be used, so that it always appeared to be very full with what would normally have been an average congregation crowded into the undamaged aisle. (Excellent Women)

24

Lunchtime Lenten services held in the still partially ruined church of St Ermin’s (St. James’s, Piccadilly) where Barbara herself had come upon a little grey woman heating a saucepan of coffee on a primus stove. (A Lot to Ask)

St. Mary Aldermary, Queen Victoria Street, EC4(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mothersole/)

At St Mary Aldermary (Canon Freddie Hood’s church) one hears the shrill whirr of the telephone through the organ music. (BP, 29 March 1955)

I suppose it must have been the shock of hearing the telephone ring, apparently in the church, that made me turn my head and see Piers Longridge in one of the side aisles behind me. It sounded shrill and particularly urgent against the music of the organ. (A Glass of Blessings)

25

Places Barbara VisitedGreenwich: Denton Welch pilgrimage to 34 Croom’s Hill

Green plant (azalea?) in upper window. Tiny patch of rather bald grass in front with dustbins. (BP, 21 September 1958) (For information on Denton Welch, see http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/dentonwelch.html)

Port Meirion, Wales (www.portmeirion.wales.com)In September 1936 Henry, Jock and Barnicot paid one more visit to Oswestry. They collected Barbara and all spent a delightful day at Port Meirion, a ‘very Henryish place with pink and blue and yellow Italian villas and statues all about in odd corners.’ (A Lot to Ask)

Hampstead: Keats’s House, off Keats GroveOn a wet afternoon recently I went to Keats’ house in Hampstead (never having been there before) and saw that he had written two poems at least—inside his Ben Jonson and another book—Shakespeare, I think. (BP letter to Philip Larkin, 23 August 1963)

There was nobody else looking over [Keats’s house] except for a middle-aged woman wearing a mackintosh, pixie hood and transparent rainboots over her shoes. She was carrying a shopping bag full of books, on top of which lay the brightly coloured packet of a frozen ‘dinner for one’ . . . And now she caught a glimpse of her face, plain but radiant, as she looked up from one of the glass cases that held the touching relics. There were tears on her cheeks. (The Sweet Dove Died)

But then she remembered Keats’s house in Hampstead and a visit there one day, long ago with somebody she had been in love with (or fancied she had been in love with). “Of course you must have been to Keats’s house,” she said. “Very charming and sad, isn’t it?”“Yes, I remember the first time I went—1968 or ’69 it must have been—a wet day and certain tensions in the air.” He smiled. (Civil to Strangers: “Across a Crowded Room”)

Little Malvern, Worcestershire. Edward Elgar’s Grave at Saint Wulstan's ChurchI find myself going to see Elgar’s grave (directed by an arrow) in the R.C. church in Little Malvern. The weather is dull but not unpleasant—rather calming and saddening and I am glad I have brought Hardy’s poems with me. Tea in the Abbey tearooms—very good home-made cakes only 6d. each. In the Priory Gardens the smell of heliotrope reminds me of Skipper’s L’Heure Bleue (but one would have to change the sexes for a story, wouldn’t one?). (BP, 15 September 1965)

26

Steventon (near Basingstoke), Jane Austen’s House (www.astoft.co.uk/austen/)

Visit to Jane Austen’s house with Bob. I put my hand down on Jane’s desk and bring it up covered with dust. Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me! (BP, 11 August 1969)

27

Settings in Pym NovelsLondon

BelgraviaThe office where I dealt with my impoverished gentlewomen was in Belgravia. (Excellent Women)

“I am Mrs. Beddoes, I live in Belgravia,” she explained . . .Mrs. Beddoes lived in a terrace of large grand houses, all of which had once been lived in by wealthy families but which were now mostly turned into flats or even government offices. (Less Than Angels)

St. Stephen’s Avenue, Goldhawk Road, W12. Piers’s flat in A Glass of BlessingsI tried to visualize the flat itself—in the Holland Park area but rather too near the Goldhawk Road, he had said. It might be in a large shabby house, perhaps not even properly self-contained. There would be a row of bells with old cards and bits of paper indicating the occupants; some of the bells would probably be out of order. Inside there would be a narrow hall with a Victorian hat stand, prams and bicycles perhaps, and a smell of cooking. (A Glass of Blessings)

“It’s rather continental here, isn’t it,” I said. “It reminds one of Naples, you know.”“Thank you,” said Piers. “That’s really the best one can say about this district and it’s nice of you to say it.” (A Glass of Blessings)

As always Pym’s powers of observation paint an accurate picture of this rather run-down location in the 1950s, not very different from what it is today—children running about, elderly women sunning themselves, and blaring music are still characteristic of St Stephen’s Avenue on a summer afternoon . . . . If I am not actually living in Piers’ flat (this house was converted to flats only 14 years ago), I can’t be very far away from it. (Christine Shuttleworth, Pym Society member)

Kardomah Café (no longer extant but Barbara frequented the one in Fleet Street, where she often sat and wrote)

[The Kardomah cafes] were all decorated in an extravagant art nouveau manner (at a time when that particular movement was considered bizarre and old-fashioned), with mosaic-covered walls—featuring peacocks with spreading tails on a sea-blue background, stained glass borders to the windows, rather rickety tile-topped tables and a great deal of hand-beaten copperwork. (A Lot to Ask)

Catherine Oliphant . . . sat brooding over her pot of tea. . . . Men and women from nearby offices [were] coming away from the counter with their trays and settling down at the tables with hardly a glance at the mosaics on the walls. These were large bright peacocks with spreading tails, each one occupying a little alcove, almost like a side chapel in a cathedral. (Less Than Angels)

28

Windsor

Virginia Water Lake (http://photoguide.to/windsor/virginiawaterlake.html)

At intervals during lunch [Humphrey’s] lips had curved into a secret smile as he imagined Leonora’s pleasure at Virginia Water, her exclamations over trees, water and ruins . . . . As they strolled along, Leonora keeping up a flow of admiring comments on the scene, they came upon a huge totem pole, shattering the peaceful beauty of the landscape. (The Sweet Dove Died)

Barbara Pym’s London

References to London are found on the following pages:Pages 10 – 14 – residencesPages 18-20, 23-25 – churchesPage 26 – places visitedPage 28 – settings in Pym novelsPages 30-33 – London maps (courtesy of Tom Sopko)

29

1. 27 Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square2. 108 Cambridge Street, Pimlico, and St. Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square3. 47 Nassau Road, Barnes4. St. Michael and All Angels Church, Barnes Bridge5. 40 Brooksville Avenue, Queen’s Park6. 32 Balcombe Street, Marylebone7. 210 High Holborn, offices of International African Institute, at St. Dunstan’s

Chambers, Fetter Lane (demolished)

Shaded boxes designate detailed maps that follow.

Thanks to Tom Sopko for producing these maps.

30

Portman Square (above), Pimlico (below)

31

Barnes (above), detail of Barnes (below)

32

Queens Park (above), detail of Queen’s Park (below)

33

Barbara Pym with Minerva outside Barn Cottage, Finstock, 1978(photo courtesy of E. P. Dutton)

34