Queer Heritage · Keswick (Catbells/Derwentwater), Cumbria (Cumberland)
Hugh Walpole's Brackenburn — Queer Lakeland
A best-selling novelist, a married ex-policeman 'chauffeur', and a discreet lifelong love lived out in a house above Derwentwater.
Evidence note. Handled as documented queer heritage: the relationship is recorded by his biographer and modern LGBTQ heritage projects; no unproven claims.
The story
a best-selling novelist and his married ex-policeman companion, above Derwentwater. The story: 1924–1941 at Brackenburn; Harold Cheevers; the Herries Chronicle landscape; documented in Cumbria LGBTQ heritage. What survives: Brackenburn (private), Derwentwater/Catbells, and Walpole's grave at St John's, Keswick. Visiting: house private; photograph Catbells/Derwentwater and the grave.
Sources
Nearby on the map
Under one Keswick roof: a poet drowning in laudanum, a marriage in ruins, and a hopeless love for his best friend's sister-in-law.
Documented historyHot spotFolk Rite & FertilityCastlerigg — the Invented Fertility CircleKeswick, Cumbria (Cumberland) · EnglandThe 'Druid fertility temple' that isn't: Georgian and Victorian romantics literally rearranged the stones to make the legend fit.
Fact & fictionScandal & SocietyThe Maid of Buttermere & the Bigamist 'Colonel'Buttermere, Cumbria (Cumberland) · EnglandA shepherdess-beauty, a fake colonel, a bigamous wedding at Lorton church — and a hanging at Carlisle that gripped all England.
Documented historyHot spotSpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.
