Alice's Adventures in Yorkshire

Alice’s adventures in Yorkshire Summer Strevens investigates the Yorkshire influences behind Alice in Wonderland he inception of Alice’s Adven - Happily obliging, Carroll regaled Ttures in Wonderland is gener - them with the fantastical tale of a ally taken as the day in early July, girl, named Alice, and her adven - 1862, the “golden afternoon” of the tures after she fell down a rabbit 4th when the author Charles hole, the story he spun not unlike Lutwidge Dodgson – better known by his those he’d made up to entertain his own pen name Lewis Carroll – took a boat trip on family from an early age, he being one of the river Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford to eleven brothers and sisters, and often drawing Godstow for a picnic outing. On that day he inspiration from the surroundings of their was accompanied by his friend the Reverend home while living at the rectory in Croft-on- Robinson Duckworth, who rowed the boat, Tees in North Yorkshire. and ten-year-old Alice Pleasance Liddell, Carroll’s father came to the parish as rector along with her sisters Edith, aged 8 and Lo - of St Peter’s in 1843, Carroll eleven years old rina who was thirteen. at the time. It is said that much of Alice in As the oars rhythmically dipped in and out Wonderland was inspired by settings in and of the water, on the little less than four-mile around the rectory and church, fuelling the journey up river, Alice implored Carroll to young author’s fictional and fantastical imag - entertain herself and her sisters with a story. inings, and that the character of the Cheshire Left, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), who many have been inspired by the carved cat, right, to create the Cheshire Cat, inset august 2015 31 Cat may well have been drawn from the to be one of the greatest nonsense poems carved stone face of a cat or lion adorning the written in the English language. sedilla near the altar in the church (a seat for Clearly the young Charles Dodgson was clergy built into the wall). When viewed while susceptible to the impressionistic ecclesiastic seated in a forward pew, the broad smile on environments of his upbringing, as it has also the creature’s face is clear, however on stand - been suggested that further characters in the ing the cheesy grin seems to disappear, much “Alice” stories may have been drawn from as the vanishing Cheshire Cat’s did. some of the decorative features in Ripon The first verse of Carroll’s famous non - Cathedral where Carroll’s father was a Canon sense poem “Jabberwocky” was also written from 1852-1868. at Croft, attributed by some to tales of the His supposed muse for the foul-tempered Sockburn Worm, a Queen of Hearts can be found among the ferocious dragon lofty gilded corbels in the Cathedral’s south like creature said transept, and a carving decorating one of the in days of yore to misericord seats found in the chancel choir have laid waste to stalls showing a griffin in hot pursuit of a rab - the nearby village bit down a hole possibly the inspiration for of Sockburn, the eternally late White Rabbit. where according There is however another, and it must be to legend around said, more obvious contender for Carroll’s the time of the White Rabbit, or perhaps even his March Norman Conquest Hare, to be found adorning the stone archway a huge man-eating surrounding the sacristy door in St Mary’s dragon with poi - Church, Beverley. The carved figure of a rab - sonous breath, bit or hare, stood up on its hind legs and car - sometimes de - rying a messenger bag dates to the 1330s and scribed as a wyrm, may have been familiar to Carroll as a child wyvern or flying as his family spent time in the Beverley area serpent, was ter - when visiting with his grandfather. The ‘White Rabbit’ rorising the vil - Another tantalising inspirational hypoth - at Beverley lage. Now esis, this time for the subterranean nature of comprising of a Alice’s adventures, has opened up, literally ruined church, a farmhouse and a mansion you might say, with the series of real life sub - called Sockburn Hall (built in 1834) all posi - sidence events occurring in the aforemen - tioned within a loop in the River Tees known tioned Ripon, as recently as last year, as well locally as the Sockburn Peninsula, the then as while Carroll was resident there. lord of the manor Sir John Conyers took up Long troubled by the eroding conse - the challenge to slay the beast. Successful in quences of ‘gypsum dissolution’, a geohazard his quest, the Grey Stone standing in a field characteristic of the underlying geology of near the ruined church still marks the place the area, the latest casualty was the house in of battle and burial spot of the fearsome Magdalen Close, destroyed when a sinkhole Sockburn Worm. opened up in early 2014. Even though it is said that Carroll wrote Acquaintances of the author, the Maisters, the poem as a parody designed to show how lived in Littlethorpe near Ripon, where a not to write a poem, it is considered by many major collapse had occurred in 1796, and 32 august 2015 A scebe from the 2010 Tim Burton version of the story showing Alice (Mia Wasikowska) peering into the rabbit hole – could it have been inspired by Ripon’s sinkholes? subsidence was also evident in the gardens of dren’s literature it was unlike anything writ - Ure Lodge, the home of Canon Badcock, a ten before. While Carroll kept his promise to contemporary of Carroll’s father while Alice, it was some months before he got Canon of Ripon. In the surrounding fields, to around to the task, though he eventually pre - the north east of Ure Lodge, near the then sented her with a manuscript entitled Alice’s railway station, the opening of a sixty-five Adventures Under Ground as a Christmas foot shaft nearly forty feet in diameter which present in 1864. exposed the surrounding solid rock in 1834 In the meantime, Carroll had decided to was in all probability a curiosity Carroll rewrite the story as a possible commercial would have visited. Yet the collapse witnessed venture. Probably with a view to canvassing by the Reverend Dunwell of Ripon in 1860 his opinion, Carroll had sent the manuscript while walking with some school children of Under Ground to a friend, the author along the banks of the River Ure must have George MacDonald, in the spring of 1863. proved even more dramatic, as before their The MacDonald children read the story and eyes the ground fell away leaving a crater loved it, and this response probably per - spanning twenty feet across and about forty suaded Carroll to seek a publisher. Alice’s Ad - feet in depth; certainly an event that may well ventures in Wonderland, with illustrations by have prompted Alice’s later literary exclama - John Tenniel, was published by Macmillan on tion “I wonder if I shall fall right through the 4th July 1865, the third anniversary of possi - earth!” bly the most famous boat trip in literary his - Though the Wonderland story was not un - tory, and a second book about the character like many others that Carroll had enchanted Alice, Through the Looking-Glass & What the Liddell sisters with before, it was Alice’s Alice Found There, followed in 1871. Later, in insistence that Carroll write this particular 1886, a facsimile of Alices Adventures Under one down for her that assured the story’s Ground , the original manuscript that Carroll eventual publication; in the sphere of chil - had given Alice Liddell, was also published. august 2015 33 ally referred to by its first line, A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky. Incidentally, that July afternoon on the river the Reverend Duckworth had also rowed his way into the story, as he was later be represented by the Duck in Carroll’s written version. While the gulf between Victorian morality and contemporary values is yawning to say the least, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell has been laid open to question, and the source of much controversy. (Many biogra - phers have supposed that Carroll had a pae - dophilic attraction to Alice, and the recent discovery of some questionable photography attributed to Carroll has re-opened the argu - ment amongst Carroll experts.) Certainly the author, who remained a confirmed bachelor, enjoyed the company and friendship of chil - A photograph of Alice Liddell, aged seven, taken dren, and though his apparent fascination by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in 1860. with childhood innocence seems dubious to The image was later published as a miniature modern eyes, perhaps imposing 21st century on the last page of the original sensibilities on to the Victorian era, it is likely that Carroll merely had a platonic affection Carroll however remained circumspect about for the girl. At the time of her birth, Alice Lid - his literary identity, shunning all notion of dell’s father was the headmaster of Westmin - fame or celebrity. ster School but was soon after appointed to As for Alice Liddell being the author’s in - the Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford, where spiration for Alice, while Carroll himself Carroll was a maths don. The Liddell family claimed in later years that his Alice was en - had moved to Oxford in 1856, and it was tirely imaginary and not based upon any real soon after that Alice first met Carroll, an avid child at all, there are at least three direct links photographer, who encountered the family to Alice Liddell in the books.

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