Save The Three Cups Hotel

The Three Cups Hotel

Campaigning for preservation of the hotel where J.R.R. Tolkien stayed and gained inspiration for his mythology. Jane Austen, G.K. Chesterton, Tennyson and H.W. Longfellow were also guests. The hotel featured in the film, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. Please send articles to me, Andrew Townsend, at afmt@btinternet.com or add a comment. Thanks to David Moss for all his work. Comments are closed at WDDC for the plans to redevelop the site but you can still write to the papers.

Friday, October 05, 2007

German Building to Honour Authors

A Museum of Literature is included in the shortlist for the 2007 Stirling Prize to be awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

You can read more about the Museum of Modern Literature at Marbech in Germany by clicking here.

It is interesting to note that Germany has chosen to erect a purpose built museum to honour some of its most famous authors. I am not aware of an equivalent institution in the UK. If any visitors to this website can let me know of any, please post a comment. I have done a quick search using Google and came across a web page for “Literature Tour” for schools from the UK to St Petersburg including a visit to Dostoyevsky's memorial flat / museum.

A tourist or a visiting student coming to the UK could find places to see connected with Shakespeare, Burns, Hardy and Dickens. However, such a person would be hard pressed to find anywhere to go inside where Tolkien has stayed and worked. There is, of course, the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where the Inklings met but Tolkien did not actually sleep or write any of his famous works there. How inspiring it would be to be able to visit The Three Cups where Tolkien slept and wrote and take refreshments or even stay as a guest! Perhaps the building could be turned into a museum and study centre as Ted Nasmith suggested in a posting here in January 2005 or some combination. And then there are all the other literary and artistic connections with The Three Cups as discussed. Surely, The Three Cups would be of more use and benefit if it were open to the public and promoted as a place of national heritage.

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