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Where the books were written, set, sold, printed and buried: from the Globe to the graves, the bookshops to the presses.
This season's book talks, festivals and exhibitions are in What's On: Books & writers
The shell-and-crystal tunnel Alexander Pope dug under the Twickenham road, the last piece of his villa.
Writers' housesGo inside
Pope built his villa by the Thames in 1720 and, because the road cut his garden off from the river, tunnelled beneath it and turned the tunnel into a grotto: walls set with Cornish minerals, ores, shells, mirrors and a piece of the Giant's Causeway, so that with the doors shut and a lamp lit the place became, in his words, a camera obscura of the river. The house was pulled down in 1808 by an owner tired of visitors; the grotto survived under a school, and the trust that restored it in 2023 opens it a few dozen days a year.
Open days by pre-booked ticket, around thirty a year
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.