When he was six years old Tennyson was sent to the grammar school at Louth, a town his mother was connected with, her father having been vicar there.  After five years at school at Louth, Tennyson returned to Somersby Rectory to be trained by his father.  The rectory possessed a good library, and here the poet obtained his extensive knowledge of the English classics.  When only twelve years old he wrote an epic of 6000 lines, and two years later a drama in blank verse.  Tennyson’s early knowledge of the sea was obtained at Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, where the family spent their summer holidays.  His father would not allow him to leave Somersby until he could recite from memory the whole of the odes of Horace.

In the early part of 1831 he returned to Somersby from Cambridge, and within a few days his father died.  The new incumbent, however, allowed the family to continue at the rectory for some years.  In 1837 they were finally obliged to leave, and for the next three years they lived at High Beach, Epping Forest.

[Illustration:  SOMERSBY RECTORY.

Where Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809.]

GLASTONBURY ABBEY

=How to get there.=—­Train from Waterloo.  South-Western Railway. =Nearest Station.=—­Glastonbury and Street. =Distance from London.=—­132-1/4 miles. =Average Time.=—­Varies from 3-1/2 to 5 hours.

                     1st 2nd 3rd
=Fares.=—­Single 21s. 0d. ... 10s. 6d. 
          Return 36s. 9d. ... 21s. 0d.

=Accommodation Obtainable.=—­“George Hotel,” “Red Lion Hotel,”
  “Crown Hotel,” etc.
=Alternative Route.=—­Train from Paddington.  Great Western Rly.

In the early days of Christianity in Britain this celebrated abbey, according to tradition, was established in A.D. 63.  Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to be the founder, and the “miraculous thorn,” which flowered on Christmas Day, was believed to be holy by the common people even up to the time of the Puritans.  During the wars between Charles I. and his Parliament the thorn was destroyed, but sturdy trees grown from cuttings of the original still flourish in some of the neighbouring gardens.  This thorn was believed by the people to be the staff used by Joseph in his journey to Britain from the Holy Land.  At one time Glastonbury Abbey covered 60 acres, and was the lengthiest ecclesiastical building in England, but as many of the houses in Glastonbury, and also a causeway across Sedgemoor (where the unhappy Duke of Monmouth was defeated) were constructed of the materials, the ruins are of necessity much diminished.  The most interesting remains are the Abbey Church, with St. Joseph’s Chapel, St. Mary’s Chapel, and the Abbot’s Kitchen.  St. Joseph’s Chapel is supposed to have been erected in the time of Henry II. and Richard I. It is one of the finest specimens in existence of transitional Norman work.