Posted by Adam Quinan on September 03, 2009 at 18:31:03 user Adam.
In Reply to: Where Is Swallowdale? posted by Andy Hudson on September 03, 2009 at 17:23:43:
Welcome aboard Tarboard and we look forward to hearing more from you. It is always encouraging to hear of young ones being led into the paths of ransome.
As for Swallowdale, there are at least three locations which discerning Ransome readers have identified as either being the "original" for Swallowdale or at least contributing elements to a composite of several locations. I am not familiar with any of them but I am sure someone who has walked over the area will pipe up soon.
In his Lake books, as opposed to the East Anglia ones, Ransome seemed to be quite prone to selecting features of a number of different places and assembling them into his own imaginary place. So his Wild Cat Island has a number of features taken from Peel Island in Coniston, but it really can't be claimed that Peel island is the only original for Wild Cat although that doesn't stop some people from saying so!