Celia Fiennes

Between 1697 and 1698, Celia Fiennes (1662-1741) visited every English county, plus brief forays into Wales and Scotland. She believed spending time in Britain “cured the itch of overvaluing foreign parts”. Touring the country was her lifelong obsession, and she did so on horseback – side-saddle, accompanied by two servants. At the time, England was bursting with ideas and innovation. In trade, agriculture and science, it was an age of great possibility. Celia wanted to experience it all. In particular, she wanted to see if these developments reached throughout the land, including the wild north. In this Great British Journey, Nick Crane sets out to see if Celia found the answers she was after. What does her journey tell us about Britain then and now? And to what extent was she the 17th century equivalent of a modern woman? Who was Celia Fiennes? Born in 1662, Celia was a noblewoman and daughter of a colonel. Unmarried and childless, travel was her passion. She saw it as improving her mind and restoring her health. She lived at same time as Daniel Defoe, and her journey anticipates the ‘economic tourism’ he established. With no formal education, Celia’s writing is often ungrammatical and rambling. But it’s spontaneous and passionate, and free of the era’s masculine pretensions. As a woman, and an amateur writer, Celia’s chances of publication were slim, and she probably wrote more for her family than a wider audience. Indeed it was 150 years after her death before Through England on a Side Saddle was first published (1888). However it stands as an inspiration to travel around Britain, particularly for women. Celia Fiennes showed that exploring one’s own country could be just as rewarding and challenging as being tempted overseas.