A fitting place for compassionate pirates
Pirates of Penzance
                                                          continued…..

Coleton Fishacre, the home of Rupert D'Oyly Carte who was Gilbert & Sullivan's producer, is in Kingswear, Devon. An Arts & Crafts style house, it is on the sea and  surrounded by a extensive garden, and an unique one. The garden boasts plants form the Mediterranean, South Africa and New Zealand. All thrive in the balmy oceanside air of Devon's coast. Best of al, it's open early in the season (about March 15) and stays open late for a National Trust House, in 2008, until November 2; it's open Wed. through Sunday now and until closing day.
The house was not constructed until 1926, so Gilbert & Sullivan did not "stay there," Sullivan having died in 1900, and Gilbert in 1911. But the D'Oyly Cartes were certainly responsible for popularizing British musical theatre on both sides of the Atlantic, making this house worth a look.
Find Coleton Fishacre at Brownstone Road, Kingswear, Devon TQ6 OEQ.

On this piano, Sir Arthur Gilbert composed Iolanthe when he stayed at the house in 1882.
Here's the amazing part: If you can play the piano, it is likely you'll be invited to play this one. Indeed, the staff likes to hear the old standards from the turn of the century through the 1930s ringing through the house on visiting days. So let them know if you play, and play where Sir Arthur Gilbert did.

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Cornwall:
Was the Wind in the Willows Set Here?

Continued...

About the river...

"By it and with it and on it and in it," said the Rat. "It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing."--The Wind in the Willows (1908), Kenneth Grahame

Fowey landing, car ferry crossing

However it came about, along its length there are ancient woodlands that include sessile oak, birch, beech, sweet chestnut and sycamore, as well as lichens, mosses and ferns of innumerable kinds. Along the estuary, kingfishers, curlews and little egrets are often seen.
Perhaps Kenneth Grahame saw a rat and a toad, and a mole and a badger. Ratty was actually a water vole, and not the sort of city rat that might first come to mind. In creating his two 'constituencies,' the Wild Wooders and River-Bankers, Grahame was creating an analogy for a modern conundrum: city life or country charm? The Wild Wooders, including stoats and weasels, preferred a tumultuous existence, while the River-Bankers--Badger, Mole, Rat and Toad--prefer the quiet life. Toad, however, is the "anybody's" character, with a rebellious nature that allows him to join either camp.
It must be noted that several other places, even a few on the continent, claim to be the inspiration for The Wind in the Willows.  Just visit Cornwall in springtime, and you'll know they must all be wrong.

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England Southwest, Vol. 1, no. 3