Sunset at Blandings (24 page)

1445
(Heavy Weather
1933
and
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
1939).

‘the afternoon
train’
(Something Fresh
1915).

1445 Car at
the Castle at 1400 sharp
(Leave
it to Psmith
1923).

1800
(Full Moon
1947).

Notes:

1.
     
There are also branch-line trains mentioned.
Bridge-ford (can this mean Bridgnorth?) to Market Blandings takes 30
minutes
(Leave it to Psmith
1923). A train leaves Market Blandings
towards Norfolk at 1240, and there’s one that returns from the Norfolk
direction at about 1945 ‘in time to dress for dinner’
(Heavy Weather 1
933).

2.
     
Blandings Castle is in Shropshire. The Severn
flows through its grounds. Shrewsbury is 45 minutes by car, not hurrying.
Market Blandings is 2½/3 miles from the castle (that includes ¾ miles of the
castle drive) . You can see the Wrekin from the battlements of the castle.

[P.S.
I ought not to have assumed that the Severn flowed through the castle grounds.
What it says in
Leave it to Psmith
(1923) is: ‘Away in the distance
wooded hills ran down to where the Severn gleamed like an unsheathed sword: up
from the river rolling park-land …’ Whose parkland? Probably Lord Emsworth’s,
but, if so, perhaps the Severn marks his boundary there. My assumption gave
some trouble.]

My
expert friend passed on my evidences to a friend of his, Colonel Michael Cobb,
who, besides knowing his
Bradshaw,
had the extra advantage of
specializing in surveying during an army career in which he spent a number of
years on the Ordnance Survey. Colonel Cobb produced a most learned report.

COLONEL
COBB’S REPORT

From an initial glance at
the problem it is clear that there are railway inconsistencies, such as
Blandings Castle being on the Severn and in Shropshire, and yet one could get a
train to its station from Paddington with a ‘first stop at Swindon’.

I
realized that I must discard certain data. I have tried to find a place which
fits the main topographical data and which lies within the limits of the
largest number of the railway facts.

The
topographical data are as follows: the castle is in Shropshire; the Severn runs
through its grounds; it is 45 minutes by car to Shrewsbury, not hurrying; the
Wrekin is visible from its battlements; it is 2½ miles or so from the castle to
its station.

These
data limit one to the environs of the Severn between Bridgnorth and Ironbridge,
between Nesscliff and the Welsh border, possibly to Baschurch. (N.B. Oldswood
Halt station was opened only in the middle-to-late 1930s.)

I took
one railway fact — that it is generally a 4-hour journey from Paddington (1923),
and a fast train takes about 3 hours 40 minutes (1947). I applied this to the
above three areas.
Bradshaw
shows that the through trains only stop at
Wellington (under 3 hours from Paddington) and, excluding Shrewsbury itself,
Gobowen (about 3 hours 40 minutes) . This latter puts Blandings Castle eight
miles from the Severn, which means that the river could hardly flow ‘through
its grounds’ (though it might flow through its land, but that is not the same
thing) . It also puts the castle in the suburbs of Oswestry. This is so
unlikely that I discarded Gobowen.

At this
stage I decided that there must be a change of trains for the passenger from
Paddington to Market Blandings. This opens up:

1.
     
The Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway, which was a possibility
between Nesscliff and Kinnnerley Junction. But the trains were sparse and I
feel sure that Wodehouse would have referred to their quaintness at some stage.

2.
     
The main-line intermediate stations between Wellington and
Shrewsbury, such as Walcot and Upton Magna, and the one possibly north of
Shrewsbury, Baschurch. These all put the castle in the right topographical
position. But I found that the local services were too sparse to give Wodehouse
the frequencies he required.

3.
     
The Severn Valley line. Here one could only just reach Bridgnorth in
3 hours 40 minutes from Paddington by one train, and the connections up to
Paddington in the morning were extremely poor. One mainly ended up in Worcester
Foregate Street.

Therefore,
by rejection, this left the L.N.W. Coalport branch from Wellington, where the
trains never connected with London trains, and the Much Wenlock branch from
Wellington. On this latter I found one station which fitted so many
topographical and railway facts that I plumped for it—Buildwas. It means a
change of trains at Wellington. So you have to swallow the fact that Wodehouse
never indicates that any passenger from London to the castle by train had to
change
en route.
And you have to allow that, though Buildwas station was
closed by the ‘stream-lining’ of British Rail in 1963, Wodehouse, living in
America, might never have been told so.

Substitute
Buildwas for Market Blandings and consider the facts arising. It is in
Shropshire. Two and a half miles from the station takes one to the lovely
village of Leighton where the Severn could run through the castle’s grounds.
And it is 10 miles from the centre of Shrewsbury —say 45 minutes without
hurrying in the 1920s.

OR

The castle could be on the
south side of the river, up the slopes towards Much Wenlock. The Wrekin is terribly
close and, if the castle is on the south side of the river, and therefore on a
north-facing slope, every window must look out at the Wrekin. But if it is on
the north side and more underneath the Wrekin, then I would expect there were
trees in the park which would hide the view unless you climbed higher in the
castle, i.e. onto the battlements. Therefore I favour the former site. (N.B.
This is the only topographical fact that makes me favour the river between
Coalport and Bridgnorth, but I cannot reconcile trains on that piece of line.)

I feel
sure that Wodehouse would have looked into a
Bradshaw
at some stage,
having settled on his area, and discovered at what times the trains went to
London and back, and how long they took. I think he will have noticed the
L.N.W. branch to Coalport and seen Madeley Market station. Could that have been
a part reason for naming the station for the castle ‘Market Blandings’? If only
the trains had connected at Wellington, that would have been a fine station for
his castle. (Could anyone have considered that Blandings Castle was really
Apley Park? The Wrekin would be ideally ‘visible from its battlements’, and the
Severn bounds miles of its park.)

Omitting
the London trains for the moment (they are dealt with later), the following
railway facts have to be reconciled:

Stops at, or
first stop, Swindon: first stop Oxford.
These two
do
not
fit. They can be explained away, but that is not an
answer. Never could one have gone from Paddington to 20 miles or so from Shrewsbury
via Swindon. One could have gone via Oxford, but not have got farther north
than Bridgnorth in the time taken.

Norfolk. A 1240
goes towards, and one returns about 1945.
One can
get to Yarmouth at
1946, leaving Buildwas at 1040 and return
on the 0900 from Yarmouth, via Birmingham, arriving at 1751. Or, if one goes direct
and does not mind changing many times, one can arrive at 2011. Inconclusive.
Bridgeford to Market Blandings has branch-line trains taking half an hour. It
is noticeable that Bridgnorth in the 1930s was between 26 and 29 minutes away
from Buildwas.

Going
into
the daily services to and from London in depth
leaves much confusion of detail, though a general pattern emerges. I have
chosen
Bradshaws
of 1910, 1932, 1939, and 1961 to cover the dates of
publication of the various books. I have divided the books into three eras: 1915-1923,
1932-1939 and 1947, 1961-1976. Rightly or wrongly I have taken the publication
date of each book to represent the date of the story in it. I put 1947 with the
1932—1939 era because I feel Wodehouse would not have been able to lay his
hands on a war-time or post-war
Bradshaw.

The
DOWN Trains

Wodehouse has trains, in
general, leaving Paddington at around 0830, 1118/1145, 1242/1250, 1400/1423, 1515/1615
and 1700/1705. I would equate these to the 0910, 1110 (there was also an 1115 and
an 1120 in 1939) and 1400. His 1515 (1939) is, I suspect, his own inclusion, and
the 1700/1705 he has, for his own convenience, equated with the 1610, for there
is nothing between the 1410 and the 1610 (he states there is nothing between the
1400 and 1705 [1935]). His 1700 has a restaurant car; in 1910 the 1655 had a
Dining Car, though the 1610 of later years had only a Tea Car.

The UP
Trains

Wodehouse has a ‘business-man’s’
train leaving variously between 0820 and 0850 and arriving at Paddington about
midday. In fact there is nothing between the 0700/ 0720 from Buildwas, arriving
Paddington 1100/1110, and the 0840/0913 arriving 1315/1408, so I think he has
added this train, again for his own convenience. It connects with the actual
0855/0900 from Wellington which arrives in Paddington between 1205 and 1215
(from 1932 onwards). His other morning trains generally fit the timing of
actual trains. His afternoon trains of 1400 and 1445 agree with the actual 1345
and 1515, and the ‘800 is exact with the actual 1802 or 1805.

It is
clear that Wodehouse consulted
Bradshaw,
or that he had a
railway-oriented person to give him the information — a general system of
trains approximately two hours apart, up and down, which he then made to fit in
with what he wanted.

I would
prefer to have had positive confirmation that his passengers changed trains on
their journeys up and down, but I believe that the sum of the evidence yields
the conclusion that Buildwas was his Market Blandings.

*

Colonel
Cobb was wise to take the publication dates of the books as giving the only
possible time-scale to the enquiry. Although in this novel,
Sunset at
Blandings
(1977), Galahad says he has only been gone a week since the
activities of
A Pelican at Blandings
(1969), there are no years, or even
months, specified in any of the books. There is a cold east wind at the
beginning of
Something Fresh
(1915), and the house-party is strangely
placed ‘between the hunting and the shooting seasons’. Otherwise surely it is
always high summer with the roses out, tea on the lawn, coffee after dinner on
the terrace or in some garden arbour, bathing in the lake every day. Occasional
thunderstorms, occasional showers and Lord Ickenham one time has a fire in his
bedroom. Hammock weather otherwise, and a perpetual
annus mirabilis.
Oh
yes, the Empress has now won prizes at Shrewsbury three years in succession.
But, if you’re going to be fussy about that, what price the information, in
Something
Fresh,
that Lord Emsworth had been at Eton in the 1860s ? No, stick to the
publishing dates like glue.

Thank
you, Colonel. The newly published
Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles
by Dorothy Eagle and Hilary Carnell, has no references for Blandings Castle
or Wodehouse. We will be surprised if the second edition does not, on the
strength of your identifications, have entries under these
and
Buildwas,
Leighton and Madeley Market.