Betjeman Walk

One of the many post-war streets in the Manadon/Honicknowle area named after British literary figures, Betjeman Walk is one of the few to honour a writer familiar with Plymouth.

Born in Highgate, London, in 1906, and educated at Marlborough School and Magdalen College, Oxford, the ‘incorrigibly indolent’ Betjeman left university without a degree. He was employed for a while as cricket master at a prep school before becoming fully involved in a career in writing.

Refusing to enter his father’s furniture business, his first book of poems, Mount Zion, was published in 1931. Wistful, amusing and generally self-deprecating, he was a champion of Victorian and Edwardian architecture – the Duke of Cornwall was his favourite Plymouth building. Knighted in 1969, he was appointed Poet Laureate in 1972 and died in 1984. He lies buried in the churchyard of St. Enodoc, on the Camel Estuary in his beloved Cornwall.

EH 22 August 2000