On the Trail of the Famous Five: Enid Blyton’s inspirations

When you visit the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, which is actually not an island at all but a peninsula, you immediately understand how this place inspired Enid Blyton’s writing career. She holidayed here for more than twenty years and it is no wonder this dramatic Dorset countryside provided inspiration for the settings and plots of her novels. It is rich with quaint thatched cottages, ruins of ancient castles, stretches of desolate heath, and sandy beaches ringed by rugged cliffs pitted with hidden smugglers’ coves. 

The ruins of Corfe Castle

Pack one of those picnics beloved by the Famous Five and set off for the evocative remains of Corfe Castle, built in the 11th century by William the Conqueror. Blyton used this as the model for Kirrin Castle in her Famous Five books, the only difference being she set George’s castle on a fictitious Kirrin island. “Broken archways, tumbledown towers, ruined walls - that was all there was left of a once beautiful castle, proud and strong. Now the jackdaws nested in it and the gulls sat on the topmost stones,” she wrote. Jackdaws do squawk around the ruined towers, just as she described, and thoughts of smugglers, thieves, dungeons,  secret caves and hidden treasure swirl in my head, as they must have done in Blyton’s.

Enid Blyton first saw the picturesque ruins of the castle as she travelled by train from her lodgings in the lovely seaside village of Swanage to Corfe Castle. The steam train still runs today, so you can make the same trip she (and the Famous Five) often did. The Greyhound Inn, an old coaching Inn, has a beer garden with amazing views of the castle and serves good meals.

Train from Swanage to Corfe.

Fifteen minutes’ drive away, Kimmeridge Bay with its Clavell Tower “brooding over the sea” provided the setting for Five Fall into Adventure. Take a picnic to Hartland Moor, between Stoborough and Corfe, which Blyton renamed Mystery Moor. The Blue Pool at Furzebrook was the inspiration for the blue lake in Five Go Off in a Caravan. In the summer months it is possible to take a boat trip to Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, the model for Whispering Island in Five Have a Mystery to solve. “Yes, the island is real, and lies in the great harbour, still full of whispering trees,” she wrote in the preface. Incidentally, Sir Robert Baden Powell held an experimental camp on the island in 1907, from which the Scout movement evolved. Avid golfers might enjoy a round at Isle of Purbeck Golf Course, once owned by Blyton and her husband.

The Blue Pool at Furzebrook

Clavell Tower

Beautiful village of Kimmeridge below Cavell Tower

While you’re in the area, don’t miss Clouds Hill, Laurence of Arabia’s little cottage just outside the town of Wareham.