Chesterton Close

This is one of a growing number of closes in Plymouth and one of many in its neighbourhood to commemorate a great British writer.

This particular road owes its name to GK (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, a London-born critic, novelist and poet. Educated at St Paul's School, he then studied art at Slade School, and used his artistic skills to illustrate works of his friend Hilaire Belloc.

His first writings were for periodicals, and throughout his life he wrote articles for The Bookan, The Speaker, The Illustrated London News and his own publication, GK's Weekly, which he started in 1925.

The earliest known books he wrote were poetic anthologies The Wild Knight and Greybeards at Play, both published in 1900. He went on to do the anti-imperialist The Napoleon of Notting Hill, 1904, and Heretics, 1908. Converted to Catholicism in 1922, at the age of 48, Chesterton also wrote about the lives of saints.

He married writer Ada Elizabeth Jones. Chesterton died in 1936. His autobiography was published, posthumously, in the same year.