Celia Fiennes (7 June 1662 – 10 April 1741) was an English traveller and writer. She explored England on horseback at a time when travel for its own sake was unusual, especially for women.

Early life

Born at Newton Tony,

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

,"June 7th 1662. Birth of Celia Fiennes". ''History Today'' LXII/6, June 2012, p. 9. she was the daughter of Nathaniel Fiennes, a politician and in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

a Parliamentarian colonel, and his second wife, Frances née Whitehead. Nathaniel was in turn the second son of

William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele (28 June 158214 April 1662) was an English nobleman and politician, known also for his involvement in several companies for setting up overseas colonies. Early life He was born at the family home of B ...

, and father of the 3rd viscount.

Career

Pioneering traveller

Fiennes never married. In 1691 she moved to London, where she had a married sister. She travelled around England on horseback between 1684 and about 1703, "to regain my health by variety and change of aire and exercise" (''Journeys''). At this time the idea of travel for its own sake was still novel, and Fiennes was exceptional as an enthusiastic woman traveller. Sometimes she travelled with relatives, but she made her "Great Journey to Newcastle and

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...

" of 1698 accompanied only by one or two servants. Her travels continued intermittently until at least 1712 and took her through most of England.

Tours and memoirs

Fiennes worked up her notes into a travel memoir in 1702, which she never published, being intended only for family reading. It provides a vivid portrait of a still largely unenclosed countryside with few and primitive roads, although signposts ("posts and hands pointing to each road with the names of the great towns or market towns that it leads to") were appearing. Robert Southey published extracts in 1812, and the first complete edition appeared in 1888 under the title ''Through England on a Side Saddle''. A scholarly edition called ''The Journeys of Celia Fiennes'' was produced by Christopher Morris in 1947. Since then the book has remained in print in a various editions. Fiennes was interested in anything new, in innovations, bustling towns, the newly fashionable

spa town A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath, Somerset, B ...

s such as

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

and

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa ...

, and in commerce. Fiennes's patriotic justification for domestic tourism and her interest in the "production and manufactures of each place" anticipated the genre of "economic tourism", which became formalised with

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel '' Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...

's professional and survey-like ''A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain'' (1724–1726). The economic tourist would become a staple of

travel writing Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel ...

throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Fiennes saw many of the finest

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

English country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

s while they were still under construction. Despite the widespread notion that the habit of visiting "stately homes" set in after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, many have been accessible to travellers of higher social standing since Fiennes' time if not earlier, and her comments are among the most interesting sources of information about them. At

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connec ...

she counted the exact number of stones and at

visited "the sulphur or stinking spaw". She also clambered over the rocks at Land's End.

Remembered

Fiennes died in Hackney in 1741. Her travels formed the subject of a play, ''Riding England Sidesaddle'' by Christopher Goulding, which was first performed at the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1992, starring

Andrea Riseborough Andrea Louise Riseborough (born 20 November 1981) is an English actress and producer. She made her film debut with a small part in ''Venus'' (2006), and has since appeared in more prominent roles in '' Happy-Go-Lucky'' (2008), '' Never Let Me Go ...

as the young Celia Fiennes.

References

External links

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

�
''Great British journeys''
Nicholas Crane. Writing about his forthcoming televised recreation of Fiennes 'Great Journey to Newcastle and to Cornwall' in 1698. Dated 2007-08-11. Retrieved 2007-08-30. *Full text o
Celia Fiennes: ''Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of William & Mary''
o
''A Vision of Britain through Time''
with links to the places mentioned.

by Celia Fiennes (1662-1741) with an introduction by Emily Wingfield Griffiths (1828–1917) London: Field and Tuer, Leadenhall Press, 1888. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fiennes, Celia 1662 births 1741 deaths English travel writers Cecil British women travel writers Writers about England 18th-century British non-fiction writers 17th-century diarists 18th-century diarists