At Home in The Boathouse With Dylan Thomas
I’ve long been curious about the lives of authors. Their writing routines, the writers that inspired them; their quirky habits and the places where they lived, worked and died.
So I thought I’d start a series of posts about the homes that provided shelter, solace possibly, inspiration for some of history’s greatest literary talents.
Let’s kick off with the most famous literary export from Wales – the poet and playwright Dylan Thomas.
From his “wordsplashed hut”, perched on a cliff, Dylan Thomas watched eagles and egrets wheel and cry above the river mouth, and composed what were to be his last poems.
Dylan Thomas Falls In Love
Thomas lived with his family in The Boathouse in the Welsh village of Laugharne for four years. He’d fallen in love with the place when he first saw it on a day’s outing with a friend. He became, he said one of these residents who arrived by bus and simply forgot to leave. And it wasn’t simply because the village had seven pubs!
Rather, it was the “timeless, mild, beguiling” nature of Laugharne that appealed to Thomas.
In one of the prose pieces published the collection Quite Early One Morning he described it as a place:
of herons, cormorants (known here as billy duckers), castle, churchyard, gulls, ghosts, geese, feuds, scares, scandals, cherry trees, mysteries, jackdaws in the chimneys, bats in the belfry, skeletons in the cupboards, pubs, mud, cockles, flatfish, curlews, rain, and human, often all too human, beings.
From The Boathouse (“My seashaken house / On a breakneck of rocks”) he could look across the estuary of the Towy where it flowed into the vast Carmarthen Bay and beyond it to the cliffs of the Gower peninsula.
The four years he lived in Laugharne coincided with a creative surge for the poet. He used a shed a little further along the lane from the house as his study.
A Poet’s Inspiration
It was here that he wrote some of his most famous poems, including Do not go gentle into that good night, and Over St John’s Hill, which depicts hawks swooping over the river mouth in search of prey.
The sounds and sights of the estuary were captured in another poem, written in 1944 to mark a walk he took on his thirtieth birthday to the shoulder of Sir John’s Hill.
Dylan Thomas lived in The Boathouse for four years from 1949. It was from Laugharne that he departed for his ill-fated trip to New York where he died suddenly in 1953.
Follow in Dylan Thomas’ Footsteps
Today visitors to Laugharne can experience both The Boathouse and Thomas’s Writing Shed. They are well worth a visit.
The house is now a museum which contains memorabilia from the family and some of the original furniture, including Dylan’s father’s desk. The interior has been returned to its 1950s appearance, with a recording of Thomas’s voice playing in the background.
When you’ve finished in the house and enjoyed your cream tea, do take a moment to walk around the side of the building from which you get a fantastic view of the estuary. The way the light plays on the water is simply magical and hard to leave behind.
You can’t go into the writing shed itself but you can get a good view just by peering through the window. It’s just one room that has been set as it looked when Dylan Thomas used it – even down to the scrumpled sweet wrappers on the floor amid discarded sheets of paper (early drafts perhaps?)
Explore further
If a visit to both these places gives you an appetite for more Dylan Thomas connections, you are in luck.
You can re-tread the route Dylan Thomas took on his birthday (celebrated in the Birthday Walk poem). It skirts the castle ruins and runs along the estuary with information boards along the way.
Or you go into the town of Laugharne to visit Brown’s Hotel (one of his favoured watering holes).
You can listen to Thomas reading with almost too much gusto, via this recording for the BBC).
Page link has gone unfortunately
that’s odd, when I do a search on the site I see the page here Simon https://bookertalk.com/dylan-thomas-house/
Sorry if you had a problem – where did you see the link so I can check that specifically
There is truly something to the inspiration a house can provide. I used to walk in one of my old neighborhoods and fantasize about living in a certain house, though that never came to pass. Good idea for a series!
My one ‘connection’ to Dylan Thomas is watching the Richard Burton Under Milkwood movie which I have on DVD. I looked for the (Australian writers) Clift/Johnston house on Hydra and of course also the Leonard Cohen house. Have I seen any others? I don’t think so though in Perth (WA) TAG Hungerford’s house is a cafe/bookshop and KS Prichard’s house is a writers’ retreat.
I havent been to as many as I’d like to either
So interesting – I have just come back from a holiday in Dylan country – apparently our cottage included the old hairdresser he went to! – so this is even more fascinating!
If the hairdresser is still around he/she must be getting quite old by now
Thanks for this wonderful post. A great idea fir a series.
Glad to hear you like the idea Caroline
Beautiful places and what a good idea for posts.
Thanks – I would love to just feature writers whose homes I’ve visited but since I haven’t been to many it would be a short series. So after a while I’ll just have to do more research. But its fun to do
Brilliant! I know he didn’t write Under Milk Wood in the boathouse but I will always love it. Also I think it’s wonderful that his granddaughter Hannah Ellis is upholding the family legacy.
There are still many people who like to believe he did write Under Milk Wood there. But why let facts get in the way of a good story eh?
Like the idea and look forward to more. I’ve always wanted to visit Laugharne but more for Browns Hotel as always wanted to have a pint there! Must do it! Coincidentally was in Portsmouth last weekend for the music festival and while walking down to the site saw a blue plaque on a standard block of flats announcing it was on site of house in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had lived for a few years. Came as completely unexpected but nice surprise!
I love those unexpected finds too. There was one I came across in Salisbury a few years ago – just around the corner from where we were staying was the school where William Golding was a teacher
I visited Laugharne way back in 1991 and loved seeing this sight again through your eyes. At 23 I barely knew anything about Dylan Thomas, so some of the visit was wasted on me at the time, but I do remember the water, light and shade on the estuary.
Love the series idea & I look forward to seeing who else pops up.
Any chance I can commission an author? I’d love to see what you could do with Herman Melville. I know the house where he wrote Moby-Dick was very important to him from the bibs and bobs I’ve read so far. My Moby-Dick readalong runs for another 6 mnths and it would be a lovely addition to our check in posts? I’ll leave it up to you though as you may prefer to focus on UK authors 🙂
Now you really have got my interest. There’s nothing I like better than a little research project. So I shall definitely see what I can do for Mr Melville ….
Oh thanks xo
My grandfather was born in 1895 in Laugharne, son of an Englishman living in Wales…
Wow, i wonder how he would have been ‘welcomed’
I’d *love* a boathouse of my own…. ;D
Not much chance of getting one on that stretch of the coast unfortunately, Lots of planning restrictions (good thing too)
Lovely! And a great idea for a series. I’ll look forward to more 🙂
Thanks for the support Sandra. It was good fun to write
Always thought his boathouse be such a great place to write
It absolutely is Stu