Five locations in the U.K. that inspired children's books

Inspiration has to come from somewhere, and for many writers - including Stevenson, Potter, Milne, Bond and Dahl - the location was their muse. Below, I share five locations that prompted these famous authors to create treasured tales loved by children and adults alike.

Llandoger Trow, Bristol

It's believed that Llandoger Trow inspired the Admiral Benbow Inn in 'Treasure Island' (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is one of Bristol's oldest pubs which dates to 1664 and can be found at Bristol Docks, near Welsh Back. It was an area renowned for trading; taking in flat-bottom boats known as Trow boats which carried coal, slate, stone and timber from Wye Valley to Welsh Back.

It's no coincidence that the popular pub was named Llandoger Trow, for its first owner was a retired Trow captain from a small village in Monmouthshire called Llandogo. Overlooking the River Wye, the Welsh village Llandoger is approximately twenty miles from Bristol.

Not only was the Admiral Benbow Inn in 'Treasure Island' associated with Llandoger Trow, but it's plausible that The Spyglass Inn, run by Long John Silver, was written to resemble heavily the sixteenth-century Bristolian building.

Edward Teach, a notorious pirate born in Bristol, was known famously as Blackbeard. Fascinatingly, secondary information reports that he may have drunk frequently at the Llandoger Trow while at the port.

Hill Top, Lake District

The Lake District was where Beatrix Potter spent many summers with her family on holiday. Already fond of botany, mycology and taxonomy, she would spend most of her summer holidays painting and sketching landscapes, animals, flowers and fungi.

Her sublime surroundings around Wray Castle, where she stayed with her family, inspired many of her early illustrations and became the backdrop to her stories, such as Benjamin Bunny.

Three years after her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), was published, Potter used the proceeds to buy a small working farm in the Lake District, where she became interested in farming and tending to animals. Between illustrating and writing, she expanded the farm and bought additional farms and farmland in the area that faced the threat of development. After Potter died, all her properties and land were given to The National Trust as requested in her will.

Ashdown Forest, Sussex

Ashdown Forest was the backdrop and inspiration behind Shepard's illustrations of 100-acre wood where Winnie-The-Pooh and his friends live.

After A.A. Milne fought in the First World War, he suffered from shell shock, known today as PTSD. He decided he needed to leave the noisy city and live in the tranquillity of the countryside, where he could fully recuperate.

He spent most days walking in Ashdown Forest alongside his young son, Christopher Robin, telling stories whilst exploring. He would invent stories based on Christopher's stuffed toys. Already an established Author and poet, Milne was introduced to British artist and book illustrator E. H. Shepard. Together the stories he told to Christopher Robin in the forest were put on paper, becoming the premises of Winnie-The-Pooh (1926).

Published following the brutality of World War One, Winnie-The-Pooh was loved by children and adults alike and gained worldwide success. It gave people an escape and needed solace in a time of great sadness as they continued to mourn their loss and live with physical and mental trauma.

London Paddington Station

Having survived an air raid during the Blitz in World War II, Michael Bond became a successful writer and was known worldwide for his stories of Paddington Bear. But where did the inspiration to write about a refugee bear with a fondness for marmalade originate?

It all began in 1956 when Bond picked out a bear left alone on a shelf in a London store. He gave it to his wife for Christmas, who named it Paddington after their local train station. Two years later, while staring at the bear, he had the idea to write a children's story about the lone bear. Memories of the Blitz entered his mind. Inspired by the evacuee children from London that passed through Reading Station with a single suitcase and a label around their neck, he gave Paddington a backstory and a label of his own that read, 'Please look after this bear. Thank you.'

The bear that was found, by the Brown family, behind some boxes at London Paddington would be distinctly recognised worldwide for causing unintentional mayhem in his blue duffle coat and red hat.

Bournville – Cadbury World

Roald Dahl is renowned for his quirky imagination. His inspiration came from people that shaped his childhood and adventurous adult life. However, one story shines among the rest due to Tim Burton's brilliant film adaptation in 2005, and that was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).

You would be surprised to learn that the inspiration behind the story came from his boarding years when he attended Repton School in South Derbyshire between 1930 to 1934. During that time, Cadbury selected Dahl and his school friends to taste and rate their newest products before being shared with the public and put on shelves.

Dahl's love for chocolate grew. During his adulthood, whilst working in an office in London, Dahl once described that he would eat a bar of chocolate every single day and every day, he would roll another piece of foil onto the already-made tin foil ball. He kept the ball on his desk in his writing hut for thirty-six years.