"A Lonely House Near Roos"?
Why in 1964 did Mary Sellars (née Bramham), a Withernsea schoolteacher, give one of her pupils an assignment to write a mock news report on Tolkien’s time living in Roos, East Yorkshire? Another scholar was given a similar task on another local author - the poet Andrew Marvell. I’m asking the question because before the publication of Tolkien’s official biography by Humphrey Carpenter in 1977, who knew of Tolkien’s residence in Roos during the Great War? Were any interviews with Tolkien which mentioned Roos published in his lifetime? There was at least one, but that didn’t appear until two years after the homework was given out. Wayne Hammond has kindly drawn my attention to Tolkien's connection with Roos appearing in The Diplomat magazine in 1966, but where did a provincial schoolteacher gain such knowledge before this article appeared?
Why was there a vestigial memory of Tolkien living in Roos 50 years after the event, when in 1917 he was an apparently unremarkable officer? Was it because he had such a distinctive name and that made a lasting impression on the tightly-knit village for only the few months he was there, but when everyone would know everyone else?
Less than 5 years after the armistice The Yorkshire Post stated: “as is to be expected by the author’s connections with the Oxford English Dictionary, Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Middle English Vocabulary” (Clarendon Press, 4s. 6d. net) is fully abreast with most recent developments in philology and lexicology, and seems eminently suitable for the purpose for which it was designed” (14 June 1922, p.4). Within a year Tolkien had a poem published in The Microcosm a journal in aid of the Boy Scout Movement. In a review he was described rather inaccurately as one of the “North-country litterateurs” [sic] featured in the periodical” [The Yorkshire Post, 14 March 1923, (p.4.)]. The following year Tolkien’s role was upgraded from a reader in English to a new professor in the recently established English Department at the University of Leeds. This was reported in The Yorkshire Post on 31 July 1924. The publication of Tolkien and Gordon’s edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was mentioned on 6 May 1925 (p.4). Over the next 4 years Tolkien’s burgeoning academic career was referenced several times in this provincial newspaper. The Yorkshire Post may have been taken by either the Reverend Milsom or the Roos schoolteacher G.W. Wilbraham, or even both. Is this how the denizens of Roos kept abreast of the career of their erstwhile brief resident? Tolkien’s name even appeared near the top of the front page of The Yorkshire Post on 28 January 1929 in a public notice for his forthcoming lecture in Leeds on “Celts and Teutons in Early Times”, in which he was described as Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford”. So, if someone in Roos was following his career they would now be aware that he had progressed to Oxford.
Tolkien in Uniform
Over the next couple of decades Tolkien was referred to less frequently in The Yorkshire Post, but he was mentioned prominently, and his connection with both Leeds and Oxford universities were stressed, on the publication of The Hobbit (20 October 1937, p.6). The Yorkshire Post also reminded its readers of Tolkien’s Leeds University connection when The Fellowship of the Ring was reviewed by Andrew Keir on 10 September 1954 (p.4).
It would seem that Tolkien’s connection with Roos only appeared once in the public domain during his lifetime. However, he mentioned it in private letters to his American publishers in 1955, to Christopher Bretherton in 1964, and finally, to his son Christopher in 1972. These letters were not made public until they were published in book form in 1981. He also emphasised the importance of Roos in his TV interview recorded in 1968, but this section was not broadcast, and the text was not published until Stuart Lee reconstructed the interview in print as late as 2018 (Tolkien Studies: Volume XV, Morganstown, West Virginia University Press, p.162). Roos wasn’t even mentioned in Grotta’s unauthorised biography (1976), but neither was Tolkien’s 18-week hospitalisation explicitly assigned to Hull in that volume. Humphrey Carpenter actually referred to Roos in his 1977 biography, but incorrectly dates the stay in Roos to after Edith gave birth to their eldest child, John, when all the evidence points to the Roos episode belonging to the period before John’s birth in November 1917 (John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War, pp.238-9.)
The reason Mary Sellars knew about Tolkien and Roos in 1964 must remain conjectural at this stage, but his career may have been followed by readers of The Yorkshire Post. So, what did the schoolboy discover? He interviewed residents of Roos, but of course half a century after Tolkien left it was descendants of people who may have met or knew of Tolkien that had stories to tell. His best informant was Arthur Robinson, who directed his attention to Mr Cheeseman’s tenure at the Post Office. Three different residences of where the Tolkien may have lived had left traces, which were still remembered in 1964.
Roos Post Office in its 1917 position
The three addresses are: A room above the Post Office at the time, the house next door to the Post Office, and the Old Rectory (also known as Roos Hall in 1917). Phil Mathison considers most of the candidates for the sites of Tolkien's lodging houses, but his book does not mention Roos Hall and when he discusses the Rectory, it is the 1893 building which is considered (Phil Mathison, Tolkien in East Yorkshire, 2012).
In 2020 the Post Office is on the north-east edge of the village at 3-5 Main Road, but this was not the case during the First World War. At that time the Post Office was on the corner of Main Road and Ellerby Lane (now Hodgson’s Lane), which places it more centrally within the village. The Post Office was opposite to the Black Horse Public House, which would have appealed to the bibulous Tolkien. In 1917 the Post Office was run by a Mr Cheeseman, and it was his son, Gordon who informed the Withernsea schoolboy that Tolkien had lodged there during the Great War. Even if Tolkien did not lodge above the Post Office or in the adjacent building there is no doubt that Tolkien would have made use of one of the most important buildings in this small community.
The same building as it looked on 11 February 2020
The 1917 Post Office and the adjoining house (another candidate for Tolkien's lodgings) as they look today
Tolkien did not write in detail about the precise addresss of any property in Roos. However, on the manuscript of "The Horns of Ulmo" he wrote that it was "rewritten in a lonely house near Roos" (Shaping of Middle-earth, p.215). This wouldn't be an apt description for either, the rooms above the Post Office, or the building next door, but it would be more fitting for the Old rectory/Roos Hall, which was on the southern edge of the village not too far from the "hemlock glade" in Dents Garth.
This picture may be found in the baptistry of Roos Church
The Old Rectory or Roos Hall burned down on 8 September 1937, when it was described as a 40-roomed mansion owned by the Dickinson family. Some of its 18 bedrooms were let out in the 1930s to various people, and it is possible the same occurred during 1917 when the Tolkiens may have had lodgings there. A press report at the time of the fire mentions the caretaker checking the “unoccupied part of the hall”, and if the situation was similar in 1917 this would help explain why Tolkien described it as a “lonely house.” The remains of Roos Hall were demolished and Elm Farm, which still exists was built on the site.
Roos Hall on Fire - Hull Daily Mail 9 September 1937
My Roos correspondent informs me that a path from the hall led directly to nearby Dents Garth where there was a school. Also, there was a track across the paddock to the bridge over the beck and through the woodland to the gates into the churchyard which were not far from the vestry door under the ‘watchtower’. Of course in May and June 1917 when the Tolkiens are believed to have been residing in Roos, these paths would have been lined with the attractive and ethereal Cow Parsley. Edith is believed to have danced and sang among the Cow Parsley or “hemlocks”, as Tolkien referred to them, in the woodland of Dents Garth.
"Hemlocks" in Roos Churchyard
The 1893 Rectory as of February 2020
In 1917 there was another Rectory in Roos. In the late-Nineteenth-century Roos Hall or the Old Rectory with its 40 rooms, including 18 bedrooms was considered too grand to be a rectory, so a new one was built nearly a quarter of a mile to the north-west. This "was built 1892-3 in a Queen Anne style to designs by Temple Moore" (Victoria County History). In 1964 this was an old rectory, but was less than 2 decades old when Tolkien was in Roos, so would have appeared to be fairly new. This is another possible candidate for Tolkien's "lonely house", as it is a detached property on the western edge of the village with bare fields for miles to the west, and no habitations immediately adjacent to it.
The 1893 Rectory and out buildings in February 2020
Today this is known as the Old Rectory, as a new one replaced it in 1968
When Roos Hall was burning, care was taken that the fire didn’t spread to nearby All Saints’ Church. At the time Tolkien was in the village the rector was the Reverend Edward Milsom, and he remained in that position until 1921. Under Milsom’s stewardship Roos Church was considered as very “High”, and the Lady Chapel, which is still present would have appealed to someone of Tolkien’s catholic faith. It is believed Tolkien would have been welcome as a Catholic in a high Anglican atmosphere. Edith, as a rather reluctant convert to Catholicism may have found the high Church of England atmosphere more congenial, especially compared with the converted cinema used for Catholic worship in Withernsea, which she was to endure later when she lived for several weeks in the seaside town.
Snowdrops around Roos Church in 2020
Pictures of the interior of the church and the vegetation in Dents Garth may be viewed here
2 comments:
...Researching since around 2003 into JRR Tolkien's writing and sources of inspiration, including reading various books about his life and writing, showed how some books include or not include relevant locations involved.
...So while focusing on the time between Sarehole and beginning of writing of The Hobbit,(1928/29); the Holderness area was no different in the included or not included locations, except for JRR in East Yorkshire by Phill Mathison.
...And so for the one 'missing' location of them all though, where 'the lonely house near Roos' that JRR referred to, really was, and looking at what everyone else has written, seems to point to a deduction, while there is no known evidence, that the location was Roos Hall.
...With one question- is the Roos Hall location really 'near Roos' or a part of Roos, and in the context that old manor and mansion houses in WW1 as well as WW2 were mostly requisitioned for one or another military use..
...Many had a primary use, and though also included other uses such as quarters for an officer of a local military base, like Thirtle Bridge.
...With other detail not being made public here, if a conclusion would be made to make a list of locations complete, the Roos Hall building would be taken as a most likely, or most probable.
Roos Hall was on the Southern edge of Roos. I’ve asked the Estate if any surviving envelopes addressed to Tolkien at that time when he was in Roos, but sadly they said no envelopes from that particular period survive.
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