encounters with literature 7-14
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coast near Fowey (image from Street View)
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map showing distance travelled … Daphne du Maurier’s house is near the yellow dot at about eight o’clock … Pont Pill is the stream at about one o’clock (map from Google Earth)
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On today’s virtual bike trip, I happened upon two locations famous for their literary connections. Near the end of my trip, I saw Readymoney (from the word for pebbly), the house Daphne du Maurier lived in during 1942. She lived here while writing her book Hungry Hill ( Doubleday-Doran, 1943) …
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Across the road is the beach at Readymoney Cove. I imagine Daphne du Maurier looking out on this view as she wrote or thought about her writing …
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Readymoney Cove in Fowey, across from du Maurier house (image from Street View)
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The house was originally the coach house for the mansion at Point Neptune …
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I also took a side road to Pont Pill. Pont Pill or Pont Creek is thought to have been the inspiration for Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows …
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Pont Creek beside a nicely landscaped house at Pont Pill (image from Street View)
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Best Views: Little Lantic Beach and the old water mill on Pont Pill …
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July 23, 2013 ‘Little Lantic Beach’ Jane Tims
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July 29, 2013 ‘old water mill at Pont Pill’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 
Wow, Daphne du Maurier lived in a very picturesque spot.
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Sheryl
August 22, 2013 at 11:18 pm
Hi Sheryl. Yes. She would have gone for walks along the shore in the photo, etc. From my reading about her, she actually didn’t like the place very well, but I think it was a hard time in her life. Jane
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jane tims
August 23, 2013 at 9:02 am
Nice post Jane! I had the pleasure of going to the northern Cornish coast one afternoon from the farm I stayed at in Devon. It was absolutely gorgeous there, so wild and free, even with all the surfboarders and summer holiday people on a busy Saturday. I sat up high on a cliff and stared out into the Atlantic from that side of it, something I dreamt of doing my whole life! I loved the novel The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier, when I was in high school, and wanted to go there ever since then. Thanks for these nice photos and as always, your lovely illustrations. hugs, Leigh
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SingingBones
August 22, 2013 at 6:27 pm
Hi. I read the House on the Strand also … I think du Maurier was ahead of her time, to write about time travel. She also wrote ‘The Birds’, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller. I will not paint another coastal landscape without thinking about you watching the sea. Jane
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jane tims
August 23, 2013 at 8:57 am
I love the colors in the second watercolor. The inviting “Readymoney” cottage scene is so much like what I imagine when I think of the English countryside – its name doesn’t seem to go well with its charming appearance…
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Barbara Rodgers
August 22, 2013 at 10:18 am
Hi. Readymoney sounds very self-important, but my reading tells me it is from a Cornish word meaning ‘pebbley’ referring to the beach. If you go on Street View to follow Readymoney Lane, you will see a lot of expensive houses. Jane
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jane tims
August 22, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Jane, I love the beach painting. Where do you keep your pictures? Do you display them? This one would look beautiful in a frame!
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stephanie
August 22, 2013 at 8:42 am
Hi Stephanie. Good question. I am stacking them up this summer (painting so many). I give a few away, and I have framed one from my virtual cycling in France and one from my Cornwall trip so far. I also bought a couple of thick shadow-box frames so I can display one and store the rest in behind … then I can switch them when I want some variety. Thanks for the comments! Jane
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jane tims
August 22, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Wow! Such lovely properties – makes me want to go visit and sit writing looking at the sea!
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Gemma Hawdon
August 22, 2013 at 2:58 am
Hi Gemma. No doubt that the area must be inspiring. The ocean always helps me to get my thoughts together. How is your ‘plot’ coming? I am still in the midst of edits. Jane
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jane tims
August 22, 2013 at 12:05 pm
It’s feeling much stronger, clearer but I’m not quite there yet!
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Gemma Hawdon
August 22, 2013 at 6:03 pm
The photos are lovely. Such beautiful places are inspiration for writing. I really like the colour contrasts and dark lines combined with the softness of the leaves and the grass and clouds in the old mill.
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Carol Steel
August 21, 2013 at 7:41 am
Hi Carol. Combining soft and hard, distinct and indistinct, is perhaps why I like doing the penwork with the painting. Jane
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jane tims
August 21, 2013 at 12:56 pm