I find the poetry of T. S Eliot a bit difficult

I’ve often been to Little Gidding, a village made famous by the poet T. S. Eliot. I took these photographs on a drive over there this week. Although it’s in Huntingdonshire it’s not very far away, so it makes a nice trip out if anyone comes to stay (although no-one comes to stay these days). There is hardly anything to the village. You need to know where you are going otherwise you can easily become lost. You turn off a lane, drive a mile or so, turn off into another lane, drive another mile or so, then turn off into a long narrow rough track (grass growing up the middle) and finally come to Ferrar House and the little church.

Despite the T. S. Eliot connection it hasn’t become a great tourist destination. You rarely see any other visitors, particularly during the week. There’s no guide book or souvenir shop.

The village was abandoned during the Black Death, and was deserted until Nicholas Ferrar founded a religious community there in 1625, seeking seclusion from the world. King Charles I visited in 1642. T. S. Eliot visited in 1936 and had a sort of mystical experience where he saw the importance of time and the relationship of “timeless moments” and later wrote the poem Little Gidding as part of his great sequence The Four Quartets (published in 1942, the last work he published).

I have to be honest and say that I have not found the village of Little Gidding a particularly mystical or moving place. The name Gidding is connected in my mind with a former work colleague who used to live in Great Gidding (he was completely unmystical and ran the local rock-climbing club). Also, I find the poetry of T. S Eliot a bit difficult. But I keep visiting the place, so it must have something going for it.


Little Gidding - looking towards Ferrar House