Synopsis
In 1697, a 34-year-old woman mounted her horse and set off on a 3,000-mile journey which over two summers would take her to every county in England. Her name was Celia Fiennes. It was a time when women didn’t do such things. It could be gruelling, unhealthy and dangerous. As she discovered, most roads were unsigned, marshy tracks, lodgings could be filthy and vermin-ridden, and highwaymen lay in wait for the unwary.
Luckily for us, Celia Fiennes kept a detailed diary about the places she saw and the people she met. She reports on the brutal justice system and political shenanigans of the time, and is fascinated by industry and commerce – workshops, shipping and especially coal-pits and tin mines. What she tells us is significant as the Industrial Revolution would soon change England forever.
Yet this remarkable woman and her story have, until now, been largely neglected.
In England From a Side-Saddle, historian and journalist Derek J. Taylor seeks to put that right. As we follow the route Celia Fiennes took, we see through her eyes an England of 320 years ago, and learn of the courage, determination and curiosity of one woman who was centuries ahead of her time.
My Review
Have you heard of Celia Fiennes? I hadn’t when I began reading
this book. Celia was a truly remarkable and unique seventeenth century woman,
who rode thousands of miles on horseback around England, in search of
exploration and adventure. She detailed her two great journeys in her diary. In
his book ‘England from a Side-Saddle’ Derek J. Taylor uses Celia’s
original diaries, kept at the Fiennes’ ancestral home Broughton Castle. He follows
Celia’s two journeys and further elaborates on her diary entries to explain
what she would have seen and the people she would have encountered on her travels.
As Derek follows her journey, he visits the same places and tells us what is
there now.
Celia Fiennes was born 7 June 1662 and a month before her 35th
birthday, in May 1697, she did something that was unheard of for a woman of her
time - especially an upper-class woman - she set off around England on
horseback, with only a few servants and explored England. During her two great
journeys over the summers 1697 and 1698, Celia tells us about visiting some 350
different places.
Her journals were discovered in 1888 and they are invaluable to
history enthusiasts because they give us a great deal of information about what
seventeenth century England was like for all classes of people. They detail
mining, trade, the judicial system, religion, food and drink and lots more.
It’s fascinating to gleam more information about how seventeenth century people
lived and worked, straight from the mind of someone who was living at the time.
I love how one night Celia could be visiting a stately home and
dining on fine food and sleeping in luxurious bedding and the next she is
downing ale, and sleeping in an inn riddled with slow worms, snails, and frogs.
I especially loved the diary entry when she went caving. It would have been
very dangerous in her long skirts, without today’s safety rails and lighting we
use to protect ourselves. But she did not care, she was up for trying anything
on her travels!
There are two handy maps at the start of the book which illustrate
both of Celia’s ‘Great Journey’s’. From these maps you can begin to appreciate
just how far she travelled and how dangerous it would have been, she only had a
few servants to help her. Derek has gone to the trouble of making Celia’s
seventeenth century writing easier to understand for the modern reader. I really
appreciate this, because for those of us not as familiar with seventeenth
century spelling, it could have been distracting and off-putting.
It was interesting reading Celia’s thoughts about places close to
where I live! I really enjoyed this book and learnt so much. I really recommend
you read about Celia Fiennes, she was a fascinating and inspiring woman and
deserves more recognition. I can’t help but think if she had been a man, we
would all know who she was!
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