Holt
Holt is a charming market town located in north
Norfolk. Both W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender attended
Gresham's School which is situated close to the town.
Gresham's is a boarding school (now co-educational)
which was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham. The school's theatre is now
called the 'Auden Theatre'. Both poets later went on to
study at Oxford University and became part of a
group of left wing 1930s poets - often referred to
collectively as 'MacSpaunday' - which
also included C. D. Lewis and Louis MacNeice.
W.H. Auden
Auden descibed his schooldays at Greshams in an essay
entitled The Old School (1934).
In 2007 a collection of Auden's early poems were
discovered by John Smart (former head of art at the
school) in old copies of the school magazine.
Another literary Old Greshamian is the novelist, editor
and one time restaurant critic John Lanchester.
Gresham (the village) was also the location of a manor
house owned by John Paston - one of the Paston family.
However, the family lost possession of the house when it
was forcibly seized by Lord Moleyns in 1449. |
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