A Gloriumptious Adventure in Roald Dahl Country
Come. Let’s travel in the footsteps of our favourite authors and discover the places that inspired their writing.
James, Roald Dahl’s Children’s Gallery
Dahl’s Home
Roald Dahl lived in the Buckinghamshire village of Great Missenden for nearly forty years. He wrote for two hours every morning and two more in the afternoon in a special hut in his garden and used the village and surrounding countryside as the settings for his novels.
Many of his books began as bedtime stories he told his five children. Dahl never learned to type and wrote all of his stories in pencil on yellow paper. It’s no surprise to learn that the creator of Willy Wonka ate a chocolate bar every day at lunchtime.
The garden of Roald Dahl’s family home, Gypsy House, is only occasionally open to visitors, as his family still lives there. The garden includes a magical maze, the colourful gypsy caravan from Danny the Champion of the World, James’s giant peaches growing in a greenhouse and the Witches Tree, home to fantastic Mr Fox and his family.
Dahl’s writing hut is exactly as he left it on the day he died, undusted and with cigarette butts in the ashtray.
Replica of Dahl’s writing hut at Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre
Roald Dahl Story Centre
Visit the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in the village’s main street. Here, interactive technology, old-fashioned storytelling and hands-on activities provide memorable and fun-packed insights into Dahl’s life and writing.
The exterior boasts Dahlisms like MIND-BOGGLINGLY and FLUSHBUNKINGLY GLORIUMPTIOUS. Willy Wonka factory gates and doors shaped like enormous chocolate bars even smell like chocolate. Inside are huge artworks by Quentin Blake, who illustrated most of Dahl’s books.
There’s furniture Dahl invented including a crazy crocodile bench and Willy Wonka’s outfit, worn by Johnny Depp in the movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Try your hand at movie-making, add dreams to the BFG’s dream bottle, dress up as Dahl characters, and create your own version of gobblefunk, the made-up language spoken by the BFG. Sit in the writing chair in a replica of Dahl’s writing hut and create a SWIZZFIGGLING STORY.
After enjoying treats like Fizzlecrumpers and Swishwifflers at in-house Café Twit, pick up a copy of Roald Dahl’s Village Trail, so you can explore places that feature in the stories, like the library where Matilda spent “glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner”, the petrol pumps which inspired the filling-station in Danny the Champion of the World and the ‘norphanage’ in The BFG, where Sophie watched the Giant blow dreams through the windows with his trumpet.
Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery
Sixteen kilometres away, The Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery in Aylesbury is great fun for younger children. They can crawl along Fantastic Mr Fox’s tunnel; see the Twits’; upside-down room; play on the BFG’s giant pipe organ, invent things with Willy Wonka, climb inside the giant peach and enter Matilda’s library through a giant book. As if this is not enough, they can ride in the Great Glass Elevator.
Exterior, Roald Dahl’s Children’s Gallery
Glass elevator, Roald Dahl’s Children’s Gallery
Aylesbury hosts an annual Roald Dahl Festival in early July with a parade of giant Dahl characters, street theatre and lots of activities.
Roald Dahl Day on 13th September celebrates the author’s birthday, and special events and parties are held all over the country, including a special opening of Gypsy House Garden.