Inaugural East Yorkshire Tolkien Tour

After a very grey week the Saturday planned for the inaugural East Yorkshire Tolkien Tour dawned a little brighter and more promising than almost any day for the past week.

[All photos not attributed are (c) 2016 Michael Flowers]

Kingston-upon-Hull

Cow Parsley in the churchyard, Roos - 23 May 2016

I woke at 5.05 without an alarm, and got ready for the day ahead slowly and deliberately.  I set off just after 8.30 am and picked up London-based veteran Jessica outside her hotel.  She informed me she had spent a small fortune on her hotel and train fares, so I thought the ensuing tour had better be good! 

Front of Dennison Centre, formerly Brooklands Officers' Hospital (2014)

Originally, more than 20 people provisionally booked on the day last October, but by the 1st of April many of these had fallen by the wayside.  However, 10 brave souls were still prepared to turn up. 

Western Exterior - 17 officers including Tolkien were hospitalised on the interior on this side of the building

We reached the Humber Bridge Country Park just before 9am, but it wasn't too long before the others arrived. Catherine was probably the first, followed by Elena and Matthew, then Dan and Mary, and Tony and Jenny - who had to actually cross the Humber Bridge to get to us! The sun came out and Dan realised he would need protection from the sun, so he and Mary popped back to their hotel to retrieve it. The others got into their respective cars, and I picked up Mary and Dan outside their hotel. 

South facing exterior - left side contained recuperating officers 

We took the road up towards Cottingham, and followed the signs to the university. Andrew and Sarah were waiting patiently at the University entrance, and I signalled them to join us at the Dennison Centre. This was the site of the Brooklands Officers' Hospital where Tolkien spent almost 22 weeks over two summers in 1917 and 1918. It is an important location for people interested in Tolkien because it was here where the building blocks of his imaginary languages and mythology really began to take shape - the earliest versions of 'The Tale of Tinúviel' and 'The Tale of Turumbar' were written, which are absolutely essential elements of what much later became The Silmarillion.  

Tolkien Plaque on Dennison Centre, Hull

The participants photographed the Tolkien plaque on the right-hand side of the building. It is sited there because it was only the west side of the building which formed part of the hospital. We compared the 1910 Ordnance Survey map with the surviving structure, and noted that the conservatory we could see appeared to be present as early as 1910. We had a look at the trees and realised that the only two which would have been there in Tolkien's time were the mature Oak and the large Cedar tree - both technically in the adjoining property. Before we left we listened to a BBC archive programme featuring Phil Mathison and Dr Rosemary Wall, explaining about the site. You may listen to this programme here:

1910 Ordnance Survey Map showing Brooklands

Hornsea

View of Hornsea Mere, approaching from the south

The next substantial Tolkien location is in Hornsea, so the intention was to drive towards the coast in convoy. Unfortunately, most of the city seemed to be migrating to Wembley, so we soon got separated in the heavier than normal traffic. However, we were able to keep in touch by walkie talkies. The first two cars followed the road into Hornsea nearest the old railway Tolkien would have used, to enjoy the majestic entrance to the attractive town,which also shows Hornsea Mere to best effect on our left, as the road drops towards sea level. The final car was separated from the other two by interfering traffic, so Matthew guided them round the longer wooded route, which sticks much closer to the mere. We left our cars in the Tesco car park whilst provisions were purchased and comfort breaks taken, and we then made the short walk to Station Terrace. Number one is where Edith and her cousin Jennie Grove lodged for a month while Tolkien was based at Hornsea Musketry Camp at nearby Rolston. Many participants took photos of the erroneous blue plaque.

Hornsea Plaque containing at least 2 errors

From Hornsea we began the 30-minute drive to what promised to be the highlight of the trip - a visit to Roos. On the way we passed the site of the musketry camp, but only one building exists which may have been there in Tolkien's time. Unfortunately, many of the buildings which survived as late as the turn of the millennium were finally demolished to make way for some classy holiday homes. On the journey I pointed out any notable landmarks, which included Admiral Storr's Tower at Hilston and Turmar Farm. Eventually, we arrived at Roos, and drove along the edge of the village until we arrived at the church on the far southern side. 

Roos

All Saints' Church, Roos - almost obscured by tall umbels 

(c) 2016 Elena Davison

Interior of Roos Church (c) 2016 Andrew Wells

Unusually, the church was open, so this became our first port of call. We were confronted by some rather extravagantly painted images of religious figures, which seemed eminently suitable for a Roman Catholic Church, rather than the Anglican edifice we were in. The organ seemed amazingly bright, but this had only been restored within the past few weeks. Tony was attracted by some calligraphy in the vestry which listed some of the incumbents of the Parish. This included the use of the ancient family name of Ros, who I believe also maintained property in Helmsley shortly after the Norman Conquest. Catherine made sure we left our mark in the church visitor's book. 

Incumbents of All Saints', Roos (c) 2016 Tony Curtis
'The Problem of Ros'

After the church we walked along the back of Dents Garth. Some of the trees had only just taken on their mantle of fresh green hue after a prolonged, slow, cold spring. However, this also meant that the Cow Parsley, which is usually pretty much past its best by the end of May, was actually at its absolute white frothy perfection. More photographs were taken, and then we ventured inside, following a fairly muddy path to the centre of the small woodland. There is now no actual glade to be seen, but we came to a natural halt in a slightly more open area. The elms which would have been present 99 years ago have largely been replaced by non-native sycamores. Other elements not found in Tolkien included the noisy cawing Rookery and the relatively subtle scent of the Ramsoms, or Wild Garlic. At this point an elderly participant, who seemed to imbue his rendition with real insight read from 'The Song of Beren and Lúthien', which was the most poignant moment of the whole trip. As he intoned the verses he was accompanied by the natural sounds of a Blackcap, and a Song Thrush among other more distant songsters. Then to make the atmosphere even more appropriate Andrew played a short excerpt from the song of the Nightingale on his phone. 

Cow Parsley in Dents Garth (c) 2016 Catherine Thorn

 Cow Parsley in Roos Churchyard

White froth of Cow Parsley under the trees

 Cow Parsley along eastern edge of Dents Garth

 Heraldic Shield of Sykes Family (c) 2016 Elena Davison

On the edge of the church we stopped off at the iron bars and the stairs leading down to the crypt.  At this point I mentioned Beren's symbol which included a hand, and contrasted this with the hand on the Sykes family's heraldic crest.  On the way back we had a look at the three-trunked linden-tree, which was only just bursting into leaf.  We then regrouped to the parking area, and enjoyed our packed lunch on the church wall with the Cow Parsley foaming over the wall behind us.  Just before we left I revealed the hidden Roos Beck, and mentioned the word meaning of Tolkien's Esgalduin, the river in Doriath close to where Beren and Lúthien met in his mythology. 

Three-trunked Linden-tree (Lime) in Roos Churchyard

The hidden Roos Beck

An "awfully treeish" Victorian Gravestone (c) 2016 Elena Davison

Unfortunately, we were running slightly behind schedule, so the visit to Halsham was cancelled.  This was quite a speculative tentative link anyway, but I still mentioned Charles Noad's theory about the mausoleum and Sauron's temple on Numenor.  I believe there are sound reasons Tolkien would have visited this nearby village, but that is explained in another blogpost.

Thirtle Bridge
Mona House, former officers' Mess, Thirtle Bridge

We then drove for less than 10 minutes to the new parking area, created for the lorries carrying the turbine blades.  On the way we passed the site of Tunstall Hall the former HQ of Tolkien's regiment, but didn't dusturb the privacy of the holidaymaker's in the Sand-Le-Mere camp.  At Thirtle Bridge, we could see the site of the Officers' Mess of the former camp now transformed into the more luxurious and extensive Mona House.  We passed the former Cookhouse as we drove towards Withernsea.  On the way we passed the remains of the former tall Black Mill, which 99 years ago marked the scene of a major checkpoint, and a fortified structure with guns searching the skies for incoming zeppelins.  At the apex of the road it was possible to see the Black structure of the mill and the white tower of the lighthouse in the same view.

Barn using the same footprint as the former Cook House

The Black Mill as it looked at its full height

 The greensward behind Withernsea Lighthouse

Withernsea

Only a few minutes later we arrived in Withernsea, and went straight to the Lighthouse museum. I was the first "return ticket" the doorward had accepted so far this year. A few of us ascended the 274 steps, whilst others repaired to the greensward with their refreshing cup of tea and cakes. Others went round the exhibits first, before relaxing on the lawn.

Interior of Withernsea Lighthouse (c) 2016 Tony Curtis

From the lighthouse we walked to the mini roundabout on Queen Street, and gathered adjacent to my old place of work in the mid-to-late-80s. Here, Edith's old lodgings shown in an old postcard photograph were compared with what we could see of this basic footprint in today's Lifeboat cafe. Finally for Withernsea, we headed to the pier castles and down on to the beach, where Edith and Ronald (painfully thin) were photographed by his understudy Huxtable in July 1917.

Edith's lodgings were in second bay window from left of J. Westerdale

Edith's Withersea Lodgings (left) as it looked in 2014

Withernsea 'castles' marking the site of the pier

Easington

From Withernsea we drove via Patrington through Easington where Tolkien had lived in a lonely farmhouse and worked on some poems in the winter of 1917/1918. As we left Easington I pointed out the Tower, which was owned by Robert Walker nearly a century ago. He was a major landowner in the area, and may have leased one of his farm properties to the Tolkien family, but so far no definitive proof has been forthcoming. 

The Tower, Easington

Kilnsea

On the road to Kilnsea the back of the acoustic sound mirror was glimpsed, and the role of this during WW1 was explained.  Finally, we arrived at the car park at the rear of the Blue Bell.  The tide was quite far out, so it was just possible to see the former sea wall peeping through the incoming waves.  A comparison with how the site looked in 1964 and how it looks now was made - with a great deal of the former Godwin Battery now lying on the beach.  We even walked on the precarious crumbling cliffs of boulder clay to take a closer look at some of the concrete debris scattered on the sand below us.

Gun Emplacement from the Former Godwin Battery 

(c) 2016 Andrew Wells

A new map of Spurn on an interpretation board provided by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust allowed me the opportunity of explaining how Spurn may just possibly have been visited by the future professor.  The plaques on the wall of the Blue Bell (former pub, but now a cafe) were a fine illustration of the destructive power of the North Sea on this vulnerable East Yorkshire coast.  We then, rather Hobbit-like, enjoyed our third lot of refreshments in as many hours by partaking of mainly strawberry ice cream tubs at the cafe.  Whilst Mary and Dan enjoyed another unhurried cup of tea on a bench outside, and Jessica stayed behind to chat, the rest of us trouped a few hundred yards to the sign of the Golden Sands Caravan Park.  This marks the site of the former hospital in which Tolkien is believed to have received treatment during the winter of 1917/18.  This rather  banal anticlimactic moment marked the end of the tour, as everyone returned to their cars for the car sharing back to the various meeting points.

The Godwin Battery Hospital was behind the Golden Beaches sign

I would like to thank all the attendees for their interest, and  the various contributions they all made which added to the success of this long-expected excursion.  Will there ever be a sequel?

Tolkien's Hemlock Glade, Part 4

A Hemlock Glade, The Houses of Healing, Two Towers and a Beacon: Tolkien in East Yorkshire, Part 4: Brooklands Officers' Hospital and the Godwin Battery

Please note the text explaining the latest findings about Tolkien and Brooklands and Kilnsea may be read in my essay ‘Tolkien in East Yorkshire’ published in Something Has Gone Crack edited by Janet Brennan Croft & Annika Röttinger.

Note: Tolkien was hospitalised many times during the period of the First World War.  This article is purely concerned with the two hospitals, or Houses of Healing in the East Riding.

The Dennison Centre, University of Hull in 1914.  In late July 1917 it became Brooklands Officers' Hospital

The Houses of Healing

Margaret Strickland Constable (1873-1961).  She was the commandant in charge of Brooklands, during Tolkien's  recuperation.  This photo was taken several years before World War One

The rear of Brooklands showing the extensive lawn

Detail from the 1910 Ordnance Survey showing Brooklands and the neighbouring property the Cedars

1910 OS map showing open fields on the opposite side of Cottingham Road to Brooklands

The west side of Brooklands.  It is believed that the hospital beds of officers were at this side of the building

There are two short descriptive passages of the environs of the Houses of Healing in The Lord of the Rings. In the first Gandalf escorts the bier of Faramir to them for treatment, where we are informed: 

            about them was a garden and greensward with trees, the only such place in the
                  City.  There dwelt the few women that had been permitted to remain in Minas
                  Tirith, since they were skilled in healing or in the service of the healers. (48.5)

In Brooklands hopefully there were also nursing staff who were skilled in the service of the healers!  Yes, Brooklands also had a greensward, or a lawn, as we would call it, and trees.  In the second extract Merry, Pippin, Legolas and Gimli are discussing their adventures after the Battle of the Pelennor:

               For a while they walked and talked, rejoicing for a brief space in peace and rest

               under the morning high up in the windy circles of the City. Then when Merry

               became weary, they went and sat upon the greensward of the Houses of Healing

               behind them; and away southward before them was the Anduin glittering in

               the sun, as it flowed away, out of the sight even of Legolas, into the wide flats and

               green haze of Lebennin and South Ithilien. (49)

Hull is renowned by its students as a windy city, but not because of its altitude.  When the wind is from the east it blows straight from the cold continent and seems to penetrate every corner.  In relation to Brooklands the Humber does flow to the southward, and it does widen as it reaches the wide flats of Sunk Island and South Holderness, but because Hull is so flat the Humber cannot be glimpsed from Brooklands, and its alluvial nature means it does not often glitter unless the light is just right in relation to the viewer!  The Anduin flows west to the sea, but the Humber flows eastwards.

Godwin Battery, Kilnsea

Plan of Godwin Battery from the book Guardians of the Humber.  The hospital is at the top, marked with an arrow & H

An aerial photograph of Godwin Battery, taken on 15 August 1918

Plaques on the side of the Blue Bell, Kilnsea - illustrating the destructive power of the sea

Kilnsea Old Church shortly before being lost to the sea

The old medieval cross before removal from the coast

1906 - after severe flooding - a view across the fields.  Kilnsea Beacon is visible on the horizon

Godwin Battery in 1964.  The observation towers and gun emplacements are still readily visible.  It seems bizarre that many of the original battery features are present at the same time as holiday caravans

2015 - the gun emplacements now lie on the beach - only visible at low tide

 This was the sea wall in Tolkien's time - now it is only fully visible at the lowest of low tides

The Kilnsea Beacon from the 1830s

 Kilnsea Beacon - this was present in Tolkien's time

Photo kindly supplied by Jan Crowther

Kilnsea Acoustic Sound Mirror

 Kilnsea Acoustic Sound Mirror.  Note metal post in front of the dish, which would have held the microphone.  Cracks seem to have been filled with cement

After I gave this piece as a talk in Leeds on 4th July 2015, Irina Metzler, one of the delegates, explained that correspondences could be drawn between the Beacon, and Acoustic Mirror at Kilnsea and Tolkien’s Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw. She pointed out that the Acoustic Mirror is very ear-like and was obviously designed to hear approaching aircraft, whilst the beacon was originally placed on a high point and was meant to be seen from afar.  Of course in The Lord of the Rings Amon Hen is the Hill of Listening and Amon Lhaw is the nearby Hill of Seeing. As with so many things in Tolkien if indeed he did have these two nearby structures as an inspiration they were utterly transformed in his fiction.  This is another matter I am going to have to give further consideration.

You may read Part 1 (Introduction & Hornsea) here
You may read Part 2 (Roos and Halsham) here
You may read Part 3 (Thirtle Bridge & Withernsea) here
You may read part 5 (Easington & Spurn Point) here

My thanks to  Jan Crowther, John Garth, Irina Metzler, and Phil Mathison with whom I was able to consult on various aspects of my research while I was writing this paper.

Footnotes

45. Hull Daily Mail, 1 Aug 1917, p.2.

46. Ibid.

47. Garth, p.239. 

48. Margaret Chichester-Constable, Diaries, The Treasure House

48.5. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 60^th Anniversary Edition, ‘The Pyre of Denethor’, p.855.

49. Ibid, ‘The Last Debate’, p.873.

50. Chichester-Constable, Diaries,

51. Hull Daily Mail, 12 Oct 1918, p.2.

52. Mathison, p.90.

53. Letters, 5 Jun 1955 to W.H. Auden, p.213. 

54 Crowther, Jan, The People Along the Sand: The Spurn Peninsula & Kilnsea, A History, 1800-2000, Andover: Phillimore, p.176, plate 3.

55. Ibid, plate 1. 

56. Ibid, plate 12.

57. Letters, 5 Jun 1955 to W.H. Auden, p.213.

58. Hammond & Scull, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, p.509.

59. Crowther, p.136.
60. Crowther, p.88..

Tolkien's Ghostly Presence

 This blogpost would not have been possible without the diligent research initially by John Garth, and subsequently by local author Phil Mathison

When childhood images crowd in upon my mind they include days spent on a beautifully sandy, virtually deserted beach during the summer holidays; a remote country churchyard surrounded by beautifully-shaped yew hedges and trees; and many visits to Yorkshire’s largest natural freshwater lake.  Later, when I left school these images were augmented by the scene of a shabby-looking building as viewed in between customers through a plate-glass bank window, and a decade afterwards my car being broken into and raided outside a building surrounded by leafy, sycamore trees.  What these mundane memories evoke seems banal enough, but rather surprisingly each one is connected with places known intimately by that master of modern fantasy writing, the author of The Lord of the Rings almost a century ago.

 All Saints’ Church, Roos.  View from the west looking along the Yew Avenue to the Church.

 Easington Cliffs and beach looking south towards Kilnsea.

My parents took us every summer to the virtually deserted beaches at Spurn Point or Kilnsea because they had an aversion to crowded resorts.  The peninsula is dotted with strange gun emplacements, watch towers, and fragments of railway line that seem to emerge from nowhere, continue for a few yards, and then disappear into nothingness again.  These were very intriguing and mysterious to a child, but I knew that they were related to wartime activity.  However,  it was only many years later that I discovered that J.R.R. Tolkien was stationed at Kilnsea, and nearby Easington in the First World War as part of the garrison guarding the East Yorkshire Coast.  While I secreted and lost a fifty pence piece given to me for my birthday among the crumbling defences on the East coast in the 1970s, more than half a century earlier Tolkien had been in the same vicinity, but with a much more serious object in view, helping to protect the coast against possible foreign incursions. 

Easington Cliffs looking south towards Kilnsea.  The barbed wire compound is reminiscent of how this stretch of coast may have looked in 1917-18. 

 Similarly, while my father was involved in heavy physical labour in Roos churchyard and I watched enthralled nearby as a Spotted Flycatcher took off on one of its amazingly versatile sorties in pursuit of a specific insect, I was completely unaware that Tolkien was inspired by his wife’s dance only a few hundred yards away, and over fifty years earlier to write one of his most personally felt, and satisfying mythological tales.  Likewise, many childhood visits were made to the beautiful Hornsea Mere to observe the wildfowl and other birds in absolute ignorance that Tolkien resided there for a time, and probably underwent firearms training nearby.  Likewise, when Hull University staff from the Dennison Centre reported my car being broken into, when it was parked outside, I was blithely ignorant that one of my favourite authors spent several months convalescing inside the building, as his huge mythological edifice began to cohere and take shape.  

The Dennison Centre Cottingham Road, Hull. Previously Brooklands Officers’ Hospital, as taken from the entrance to the University of Hull.

 It must have been in 1981 on publication of the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien that I became aware that a small village called Roos was mentioned three times.  Could this actually be the same tiny place I was taken as a child when my father was employed in heavy physical labour within the churchyard?  On further investigation it was clear Tolkien’s Roos was identical to the one I knew in East Yorkshire.  I can still recall how surprised I was to learn that Tolkien was inspired to write about the Elven princess Lúthien Tinúviel by watching his young wife dance for him in a wood near the seemingly-insignificant Roos.  Shortly afterwards I read Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography for the first time even though it had been published several years earlier.  It became clearer from the biography that Tolkien was stationed for a brief period in the Roos area, and also convalesced for a time at Brooklands Officers’ Hospital in Hull, but the account is very brief, and from the breezy tone of the book, the war period, despite the inherent and obvious dangers doesn’t appear as being especially significant in Tolkien’s long life and writing career.  Not long after reading the biography my school days came to an end and after a few years spent stamping Hull people’s cheques and credits, and even on one occasion having to bellow at Philip Larkin in a bank on Cottingham Road, I was transferred to Withernsea, a bleak and rundown town on Yorkshire’s east coast.  It was to be nearly another two decades before I realised that even this location had a Tolkien connection.  I had no idea when I glanced out of the window between customers at a bank in Withernsea I was looking directly into the doorway of Edith Tolkien’s 1917 lodging house.  

The view from the bank's window: 76 Queen Street, Withernsea.  Edith Tolkien lodged here from 12^th July – 21^st August 1917.

 The entrance to the lodging house in 1917 was on the far left of this building.

Five years of drudgery in Withernsea made me wish to resume my higher education, and I enrolled in an English Language and Literature course at the University of Hull.  Tolkien had a very low profile here, so I was surprised to see a copy of The Lord of the Rings on my favourite tutor’s bookshelf, but his fiction wasn’t available to be studied on any of the existing modules.  It may have been for this reason that I chose Old English, and at least here Tolkien’s importance as a Beowulf scholar was emphasized.  As a mature student I was one of the relatively few students with a car, and if I was only visiting the library or campus for a brief period my early morning parking spot was just outside the Dennison Centre.  However, a further Tolkien connection was not learned until nearly 20 years after graduation.  

The Dennison Centre Cottingham Road, Hull. Previously Brooklands Officers’ Hospital.  The hospital was on the right (west side) of this building.

 The Dennison Centre Cottingham Road, Hull. Previously Brooklands Officers’ Hospital.  The rear view, from the gardens.

The vague hints of Tolkien’s stay in East Yorkshire and correspondences with locations in my own life didn’t really coalesce until after I first read John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War.  This work concentrated a lot more on Tolkien’s time in the area than Carpenter.  One also gets the impression that Garth actually visited the East Yorkshire locations and understood how these unique landscapes affected and inspired a writer in a way Carpenter’s rather “Oxford-centric” approach never does.  Indeed, although Garth is a professional journalist his prose takes on an almost poetic quality at times, especially when he is describing the eerie qualities of the topography and the fragility of the Holderness peninsula.  Garth quietly modifies some of Carpenter’s incorrect dating of events, and provides more detail to the bones of the original skeletal biographical account.  For instance, the dating of the inspirational dance at Roos is changed from 1918 to spring 1917, and Tolkien’s time at Thirtle Bridge, Easington and Hornsea is fleshed out, and Brooklands is identified as being on Cottingham Road in Hull.  Although I know many tiny nooks and crannies in Holderness, I had never even heard of Thirtle Bridge before reading Garth’s book.  This wasn’t surprising as Thirtle Bridge was a temporary army camp, only constructed for purposes of war, and not likely to leave a large architectural legacy.  Garth highlights just what Tolkien was working on at his time in East Yorkshire, and includes several very acute analyses of specific poems and his emerging mythology, explaining just how and why they were affected and influenced.   

Thirtle Bridge Officers’ Mess, now renamed Mona House, and much extended and altered.  The original officers’ mess was on the site of the left-hand side of the present building.

Thirtle Bridge Cookhouse, now used as a barn.

 Finally, in 2012 a slim local volume was published which filled in several of the remaining blank spaces, and coincidentally hammered home the personal resonances for me.  Unlike Carpenter’s breezy style, and Garth’s poetic journalistic combination, Phil Mathison’s meticulous workmanlike research sifted every available scrap of postcard, envelope, and war office medical board report in order to tease out as far as is possible an exact chronology and itinerary of Tolkien’s time in East Yorkshire.  Therefore we learn of the exact addresses at which Edith and Jennie Grove lodged in Hornsea and Withernsea and for how long.  Mathison even manages to locate some structures on the Thirtle Bridge site, and proves that a couple of them have managed to survive into the 21^st-century.  Mathison also manages to pinpoint the precise modern-day location of Brooklands Officers’ Hospital, which turns out to be my favourite university parking place, immediately opposite the university entrance!  Mathison also reveals that Tolkien was treated at a second hospital at the Godwin Battery right on the edge of the thundering North Sea.  This was the most surprising revelation of all for me, because for the last decade I’ve been leading my students past the exact spot on the way to watch some of Britain’s most threatened breeding sea birds.

Hornsea – the most picturesque approach.  Tolkien’s fascination with place-names would have told him that Hornsea’s name was derived from its development near its inland sea – the mere – not its proximity to the German Ocean. 

 1 Bank Terrace, Hornsea.  Edith Tolkien and her cousin Jennie Grove lodged here from 1^st May – 1^st June 1917.

 Blue Plaque on 1 Bank Terrace, Hornsea. NB Jennie Grove is incorrectly said to be Tolkien’s cousin, and her first name is also spelled incorrectly.

 View from Dents Garth, Roos looking towards Thirtle Bridge.

 Golden Sands Caravan Park, Kilnsea.  The site of the Godwin battery hospital was just behind the notice.

It is now possible after Mathison’s research to follow in Tolkien footsteps in East Yorkshire, although wartime restrictions on information mean that some details still remain a little vague.  We know that Tolkien was expected locally any time after 27^th November 1916, but he didn’t actually arrive in East Yorkshire until 19^th April 1917.  Shortly afterwards Edith lodged at 1 Bank Terrace, Hornsea, while she thought Tolkien was going to be based at the nearby Hornsea musktry camp.  However, when it became clear he was more likely to be stationed at the more distant Thirtle Bridge Camp she left Hornsea.  There is no extant correspondence for the six weeks after Edith left Bank Terrace, so either letters have been lost, or there was no need for letters.  It is possible that the young married couple may have been able to stay together for those six weeks.  At the end of this time Edith took lodgings in Withernsea, which was only 3 miles from Tolkien at Thirtle Bridge.  In May 1917 Edith danced near Roos, and the inspiration for Lúthien and Beren was sparked.  On the 13^th of August Tolkien was admitted to Brooklands officers’ Hospital for the first time.  In total he spent more than twenty weeks of his eighteen months in the region in those congenial surroundings. It was at Brooklands that he was able to devote the longest concentrated time on his emerging mythology than at any earlier period.  In that time he wrote the first versions of ‘The Tale of Tinúviel’ and ‘The Tale of Turambar.’  These are arguably the two most important and central narratives which make up The Silmarillion, and they were to take hold of Tolkien’s imaginative writing for decades to come.  While Tolkien was hospitalised he was under the auspices of local land-owner Margaret Strickland-Constable.  She was a keen linguistic herself, apparently proficient in German, French, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, and one wonders if she and the putative author discussed this common connection?  It is known that Tolkien consolidated his knowledge of Italian and Spanish, and even began to study Russian while he was hospitalised.  Of course Tolkien’s invented languages play a crucial part in his developing stories and he was also able to devote a lot of time expanding his lexicon and grammar of Qenya and Goldogrin, thus providing a substantial linguistic groundwork for his imaginative world.    

Margaret Strickland-Constable (1863-1961).  Operated the Brooklands Officers’ Hospital in Hull when Tolkien was hospitalised.

After Mathison’s research there may not be much more new material to unearth regarding Tolkien’s time in East Yorkshire, but we can always remain hopeful.  Some intriguing loose ends do still remain.  For instance, when Tolkien was in the Humber Garrison he travelled to Dunstable to sit a Signalling Course exam in the second half of July 1917.  Were Tolkien’s duties as a signalling officer connected in any way with the largest surviving remnant of the Great War in Holderness?  This is something which remained unmentioned by both Garth and Mathison.  In 1916, or possibly 1917, according to local historian Jan Crowther, an Acoustic Sound Mirror was erected at Kilnsea to listen out for approaching zeppelins and other aircraft.  The sound was focussed by the concave dish to the “collector’s head” mounted on the metal pipe still visible in modern photographs, on which was a rudimentary microphone.  Wires from this led down to a trench in which an operator with headphones would listen for approaching aircraft, and would provide an early warning.  We will probably never know if Tolkien was one of those “listeners”, but even if not, when he was in Kilnsea he could not have failed to see this brutal, monumental concrete structure.  Incidentally, this 16-feet high piece of concrete remains the only listed building in Kilnsea. 

Acoustic Sound Mirror, Kilnsea.  Installed 1916/17.  Would a Signalling Officer have used this to monitor approaching aircraft?

Acoustic Sound Mirror, Kilnsea. The post which held the rudimentary microphone may be seen directly in front of the dish.

Obviously Oxford, and the outskirts of Birmingham are pre-eminently important in understanding Tolkien’s life and work, but East Yorkshire, although much more briefly connected to Tolkien, still played a crucial part at a very difficult period in his life, and as an inspiration for the foundation of his emerging mythology.  Philip Larkin famously liked Hull, because it was away from the literary salons of London, and because it was out on the edge of things.  However, Hull’s isolation doesn’t always work in its favour.  Hull and Holderness are often sidelined from the mainstream because of their particular geological location, but at the moment they also seem to getting continually sidelined by the less concrete assertions of other localities.  Among these the Burren in Ireland and Stoneyhurst College in Lancashire seem to be garnering plenty of media attention in newspaper articles, but if you examine their claims in detail it is evident that the texts they were meant to have inspired were virtually completed by the time Tolkien visited those locations.  Further afield the claims of Ethiopia and Pawneeland as the ‘real’ inspirations for Middle-earth have spawned book-length theses bolstering their claims.  In contrast, Tolkien’s time in East Yorkshire occurred at a tumultuous period in world history, but also at a significant period in both his personal life and literary development.  Despite the threatening presence of Zeppelins appearing on the Yorkshire coast, Tolkien was able to spend a brief idyllic time with his young wife on the outskirts of Roos, until the peripatetic life of an army wife and Tolkien’s own ill health became too much for Edith, and she returned to Cheltenham to give birth to her first child.  More importantly for literary history the dance in an unassuming quiet village in East Yorkshire to use Tolkien’s own words inspired the “kernel of the mythology, the matter of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade filled with ‘hemlocks’ (or other while umbellifers) near Roos on the Holderness peninsula.”  To those who are interested in one of the genuine inspirations for Tolkien’s imaginative fiction, Roos and associated localities in East Yorkshire will hopefully one day take their rightful place behind Birmingham and Oxford, but ahead of what amounts to barely more than fraudulent claims by other locations, as an important milestone on the Tolkien literary trail.  

Cow Parsley in Roos churchyard May 2014. 

Hull’s appointment as City of Culture occurs in 2017, which coincides with the centenary of Tolkien’s tenure in the area, and more significantly the centenary of the genesis of the Beren and Lúthien story in the May of 2017.  Hopefully, some enterprising Tolkien aficionado will ensure that an event will be organised to celebrate and commemorate this momentous literary occasion.

Some Other Holderness Locations:

The Two Towers of Easington:

‘The Tower’, Easington.  In 1917-18 Robert Walker, the owner, rented his properties to army families.

 The Old Coastguard House, Easington.  Local landmark.

 Tunstall Hall.  During WW1 used as Officers’ headquarters and lodgings for officers.

 Roos, North side of Dents Garth looking south.

Roos, South side of Dents Garth looking north.

 Plaques on Blue Bell, Kilnsea. They illustrate the destructive  power of the North Sea. 

 North Side of the Blue Bell, Kilnsea.  This was a public house when Tolkien was at the nearby Godwin Battery.

 All Saints’ Church, Roos.  View of the north side including watch tower.