Kilvert's Diary

Product Information

The pub, which dates from medieval times, recently underwent major renovation after a serious fire. Now it offers flagstone floors, friendly locals, Butty Bach on tap, a well-worn dart board, and great cod and chips. Kilvert never made it across the threshold, though. After finding Painscastle’s mayor at the porch, he asked him for a guided tour of a nearby quarry instead. But a fortnight after his return from honeymoon, Kilvert was taken ill and died on 23 September, from peritonitis. He was 38. Kilvert was born on 3 December 1840 at The Rectory, Hardenhuish Lane, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, to the Rev. Robert Kilvert, rector of Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, and Thermuthis, daughter of Walter Coleman and Thermuthis Ashe. Despite Kilvert's niece's actions she ironically was a Vice-President, and an avid member of the Kilvert Society for many years up until her death in 1964.

Kilverts Diaries by Kilvert - AbeBooks Kilverts Diaries by Kilvert - AbeBooks

Ten minutes in and my walking companion is already recommending a rest. But I’m eager to get on. The sun is out, the skylarks are in song, and the hills of Radnorshire are calling. Yet I heed his suggestion.

A mile or so out of Clyro, I reach Lower Lloyney farm, a solid square-jawed place with a muddy yard. The workhorse building reminds me that this is hill farming country, as short on luxury as it is rich in weather. Neighbouring Herefordshire, with its rich fertile plains, is awash with grand farmhouses. Not so here. People build as they live: simply, without frills. At last, too, Kilvert had found a wife. He was married to Elizabeth Rowland, who he had met on a trip to Paris three years earlier, in August 1879.

The ultimate guide to country life - The Oldie The ultimate guide to country life - The Oldie

Hope did preserve three of the notebooks. She presented one to Plomer himself, another to Jeremy Sandford, who had written a radio play about Kilvert, and the final one to Charles Harvey, a Kilvert enthusiast. The survival of these originals today in the National Library of Wales and Durham University Library gives one a taste of the sad, irretrievable loss caused by this wanton destruction. The appeal of several episodes in these manuscripts, absent from the edited diary, suggest furthermore that Plomer's insistence that he had published the best of the diary in his three volumes was much too confident. You may also notice the curious prescience of the words, from the Book of Hebrews, engraved on Kilvert’s white tombstone: ‘He being dead yet speaketh’. Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuthAdlard, John (Spring 1974). "The Failure of Francis Kilvert". Michigan Quarterly Review. 13 (2): 133–135. ISSN 1558-7266 . Retrieved 10 December 2016. On the road out of the village lies the Baskerville Court Hotel. Formerly known as Clyro Court, this baronial-style house, with its impressive ceremonial staircase, was built by the local Baskerville squire and was the scene of the croquet and archery parties attended by Kilvert. It was his rejection by Daisy Thomas, daughter of the vicar in Llanigon, that caused Kilvert to leave Clyro in 1872. He returned to Wiltshire to be his father’s curate for several years.

Walking the Welsh Marches with a Victorian clergyman Walking the Welsh Marches with a Victorian clergyman

He certainly liked nothing better than a deserted road. ‘I had the satisfaction of managing to walk from Hay to Clyro by the fields without meeting a single person’, he wrote in 1871, something he regarded as ‘a great triumph and a subject for warm self-congratulation’. However, there was one type of individual, increasingly common with the spread of the railway network across Britain, who aroused his dismay and whom he treated with contempt - and that was the tourist. He being dead yet speaketh’: a prophetic quote from Hebrews 11:4 on the Reverend Kilvert’s grave in the churchyard of St Andrew’s church, Bredwardine (Herefordshire), where he served as rector from 1877 until his death in 1879. ALL Images: Kate Owen.

The diary runs from January 1870 until just before his death on 23 September 1879. We believe the diary filled about twenty-nine notebooks. Mrs Kilvert removed all the notebooks from 9 September 1875 to 1 March 1876 and 27 June 1876 to 31 December 1877, we believe for personal reasons. She removed all mention of herself. On Mrs Kilvert’s death in 1911 the remaining twenty-two notebooks were passed to Kilvert’s sister Dora Pitcairn who in turn left them to her niece Frances Essex Hope, n ée Smith. Conradi, Peter J (17 July 2009). "Book of a Lifetime: The Diaries, By Francis Kilvert". The Independent . Retrieved 2 May 2016.