Arthur Ransome Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Pin Mill shoreline - geograph.org

Pin Mill, near Ipswich, is a setting for much of the action in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and Secret Water.

Pin Mill is a small village on the River Orwell, below Ipswich and above Shotley in Eastern England. It is the setting of the opening chapters of both We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and Secret Water.

The Walkers stay at Alma Cottage with Miss Powell (WD1) & (SW1).

The sketch of Alma Cottage also shows the "Butt and Oyster" inn nearby (WD1). The high tide was lapping against the walls of the Butt and Oyster (WD3), and later they could see .... the old Butt and Oyster Inn at the water's edge (WD27).

Pin Mill is also a setting for The Salt-Stained Book, where Donny Walker is fostered by Wendy the vicar and her husband Gerald (SSBchap no req).

The Ransomes at Pin Mill[]

When the Ransomes left Low Ludderburn for the East Coast in 1935, they first went to Broke Farm then to Harkstead Hall, and kept Selina King nearby at their Pin Mill anchorage. In 1911 Arthur had declined an offer to go sailing with the bibliographer Walter Ledger, as he was told by Oscar Wilde’s friend Robbie Ross that Ledger had episodes of homicidal mania. Later though he said he always regretted that I did not sail with him, for he kept his Blue Bird at Pin Mill, and, if I had gone, I should have known that charming anchorage twenty years earlier.(AAR pp352,142)

Advertisement