Beaconsfield: Alison Uttley

4 Jan

Beaconsfield is a market town in Buckinghamshire, home to Bekonscot, the first model village in the world. It has an ‘old’ town and a ‘new’ town and is the burial place of the author, G K Chesterton, author of the ‘Father Brown’ stories. Alison Uttley, author of the ‘Little Grey Rabbit’ books and ‘A Traveller in Time’ lived in Beaconsfield from 1938 to 1976. She moved to the town in the same year as Enid Blyton, but she took an instant dislike to Enid, calling her ‘vulgar’.

There is very little evidence of Uttley’s presence in the town. She lived in Ellwood Road in a house called ‘Thackers’, named after the manor house in her book, ‘A Traveller in Time’ and although the house is still there today, there is no plaque or information to associate it with its famous resident. However, a plaque was unveiled on the 17th December (Alison’s birthday) 2018 in the Beaconsfield Town Council garden alongside those to other famous inhabitants and events.

She is buried in the churchyard at nearby Penn Church. The ‘Penn Doom’ painting was discovered here in 1938 and medieval wall paintings survived under the whitewash on the walls. Alison Uttley wrote about Penn in her book, ‘Buckinghamshire’…

The church at Penn is beautiful in its simplicity, with its whitewashed walls, its painted hatchments, its stone porch. The pews have doors with latches, so that one feels secure, kneeling there.