By Rachael Goodenough
Did you know the inspiration for a beloved fairy tale lived right on your doorstep? Come down the rabbit hole with me as I tell you the story of Alice Liddell.
In the 18th century, Alice Liddell was a young girl and her father was the Dean of Christ Church in Oxford, according to the V&A. It was there he befriended Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known to us as Lewis Carroll. Carroll was an avid photographer, and he took many photos of Alice and her sisters. As a friend of the Liddell family, Carroll would often take the Liddell girls on outings such as picnics and boat rides down the river Isis. It was during one of these boat rides that the seed of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was planted.
Carroll, along with another family friend, Rev. Robinson Duckworth, took Alice and her sisters onto a boat, where Alice implored Carroll to tell them a story, as he often did. He made Alice the star of the show, and even created characters based on the people in her life, as according to scholars, the Red Queen was inspired by their governess, and the White Knight is thought to be Carroll himself. And so on a sunny day in 1862, Carroll told Alice and her sisters the story of Alice and the White Rabbit. Carroll had never bothered to write down these stories before, but Alice demanded that he document this one. Carroll even recalled in his diary retelling ‘the interminable Alice’s adventures’ when recording the events of that day. So, a few months later, at the behest of a stubborn little girl, he did. He gifted Alice with the complete manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, which would later be published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
So how does this classic story relate to Cheltenham if this all happened in Oxford? Well although Carroll met Alice’s father in Oxford, Alice and her sister actually lived in a house with their grandparents, governess and two maiden aunts right here in the Cheltenham suburb of Charlton Kings. Carroll even stayed in this house sometimes when he visited the family. And in the dining room of this house, stood, and still stands today, the infamous mirror that inspired the sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
