Here in Teddington cemetery, with his wife Lucy Maguire who died a couple of years earlier, lies romantic English novelist, or how he might have preferred to be known, horticulturalist, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, who died in 1900 aged 74.
Born in 1825 at Longworth, (then Berkshire, now Oxfordshire), and better known in life, (as in death, apparently), as R.D. Blackmore, he was one of the most famous writers of the second half of the 19th Century. Less well known, perhaps, for his love of gardening, and growing fruit and vegetables.
His mother died when he was very young, and he moved with his father to spend much of his childhood in the lush and inspiring "Doone Country" of Exmoor, and along the Badgworthy Water. Noted for his vivid descriptions of the countryside, he shared with Thomas Hardy at the time a love of the south west of England and a powerful sense of regional settings in his writing.
His most successful and well-known novel was Lorna Doone published in 1869, and with it he unwittingly pioneered a new romantic movement in English fiction, believing it had become popular by accident based on a flawed book review that misrepresented the real story. Despite rivalry and differences in temperament and opinions, Thomas Hardy wrote to Blackmore expressing his appreciation of the book. Various attempts were made to dramatise it, but Blackmore authorised only one, by Horace Newte.
Blackmore himself regarded his first foray into writing, The Maid of Sker, (actually published a few years after Lorna Doone in 1872), to be his finest work.
His most successful foray into horticulture, on the other hand, was recognition by his peers of some magnificent swedes. A little more of which later.
In 1857, Blackmore inherited a sum of money from the death of an uncle that enabled him to realise a long-held ambition of owning a house and large garden in the country. The “country” back then translated to Teddington, where he had admired a 16-acre plot for some time. Here he built his new home, Gomer House, in 1860, in which he lived for the rest of his life, with his wife. In the extensive grounds he created an 11-acre market garden specialising in the cultivation of fruit. His knowledge of horticulture was extensive, but his success limited to supplying pears to Covent Garden.
An 1898 sketch of Gomer House (artist unknown)
At the time Blackmore settled in Teddington the railway had not yet arrived in the area, and a quiet, rural atmosphere conducive to work in his market garden prevailed, (he wrote mostly in the winter months). But it wasn’t long after that plans were afoot to purchase land for the laying of tracks. In 1868, he fought against claims made on his property by the London and South Western Railway Company. He won, though he was unable to prevent the building of Teddington railway station almost directly opposite his house.
Some years after his death the house was demolished and Doone Close, Blackmore's Grove and Gomer Gardens were built and so-named in reference to the novelist's associations with Teddington.
Gomer House stood roughly where the tree is in front of the parked blue car in the above photograph, beyond which is Teddington railway station
The area Blackmore lived
His final letter was to his sister Ellen, where he movingly ended his short Christmas note of 1899 as follows (I love the PS):
"I have fallen away during the last month, having taken obstinate chills, & caring neither to eat nor drink, nor speak. All my energy & spirit are abated, & often I know not where I am. – E. & D. join me in kindest love, & I am always
PS Frost coming, I fear – don't like the look of it”
But wait. The swedes! Remarkably Blackmore said he preferred to be remembered as the winner of first prize for swedes at a local horticultural event than as the author of Lorna Doone!!
Now that’s grounded. Well-tilled ground at that, no doubt.
Red arrow : Where Gomer House stood
Black arrow: Blackmore and wife's shared grave in Teddington Cemetery
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