Parts of Chapter 7 of The 39 Steps are set near “Artinswell,” on the River Kennet – briefly but quite lovingly described by John Buchan. Where is Artinswell?
For some 25 years I've been a rod on the Kennet. Like Sir Walter, I fish the dry fly on the "Kenner" with a canvas bag and a split-cane rod. Passages in Chapter 7 mirror the Kennet I know – the heavy, sweet air, the beeches, limes, gorgeous towering chestnuts, and “water buttercups” – ranunculus, the signature aquatic weed of the chalk stream. Buchan has it all exactly right.
In Chapter 7 Hannay, traveling by rail, seeks Sir Walter’s cottage near the "little station of Artinswell.” Is Artinswell identifiable? The possibilities are actually fairly limited. Hannay’s train change at Reading would have been onto the Bedwyn line, still in service, which parallels the Kennet as far as Hungerford, from which it turns away from the river toward the southwest. So, to give geographical accuracy to the text, Artinswell would lie between Reading and Hungerford. The Bedwyn line serves a number of little stations along the way; which might be Artinswell? An important clue is that the Kennet ceases to be a trout river at Newbury; there, the coarse fish take charge. Would it have been so in 1915? The unsuitability of the water for trout from Newbury eastward is often attributed to the close proximity of the Kennet/Avon Canal to the river, beginning west of Newbury. That would have been true in 1915.
Buchan presents Sir Walter as a dry-fly trout fisherman. Making some presumptions based on the foregoing, Sir Walter would have best been suited by the water between Newbury and Hungerford. Today there is only one "little station" on the Bedwyn line between those towns, and that is at the charming village of Kintbury.
The motor road northward from the little rail station at Kintbury leads through a beech wood and down to the floor of the Kennet valley, and of course the river itself. Through the tops of the trees to the south can be glimpsed the round green shoulders of the Downs -- Combe Gibbit is up there. All this is just as described in Chapter 7. After a comfortable amble along the motor road one reaches a bridge that crosses the main carrier of the Kennet. From the bridge an idling passerby peering into the green depths can often see a good trout; in the evening such a trout might well have the appearance of a black stone. This of course is the recognition code between Hannay and Sir Walter.
From the bridge is visible the gate of a cottage, whose garden runs down to the river. Years ago I often took this cottage for trout-fishing holidays. I've stood many times on the bridge watching the trout patrol the water beneath. Yet, that cottage would not be Sir Walter's cottage of Chapter 7. It began life as an humble gatekeeper's cottage, not as grand as Sir Walter’s. And it is too new; it would have been built after the Great War, when Barton Court estate, to which it is the gate cottage, was built for Adm. Ld. Jellicoe. Perhaps it had some predecessor, lost in the construction. The gate’s visibility from the road bridge is compelling.
My own fishing is farther up the Kennet, at Chilton Foliate. There is no "little station" on the Bedwyn line there. The nearest rail station is Hungerford. Perhaps in 1915 the Hungerford station might have been "little." The distance from there to the Chilton Foliate beat is walkable, perhaps a mile by the shortest way. And the water, enarboured by gorgeous chestnuts and thick with ranunculus, fits Buchan’s description. But if there must be a particular venue identifiable as Buchan’s Artinswell, my vote is for Kintbury. I can well imagine Buchan standing on the road bridge there, with the great green shoulders of the downs high behind him, and a fisherman working his way down the north bank.
Has anyone taken a view as to the location of “Artinswell”? Please email any answers to jbsoc.manager@gmail.com.