Toad Hall

Fowey Hall in Fowey, Cornwall (shown above), built for the Hanson family, about a hundred years ago, as a kind of statement (with those big cupolas), that they were 'The Folks Who Live On the Hill', is supposed to be the inspiration for the overblown Toad Hall in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in The Willows. It is now an hotel but, frankly, I prefer the haunted room of The Ship, or The Fowey Hotel on the Esplanade. The ghost in The Ship (a window in the haunted, panelled room, dating from 1570 is shown below), is supposed to be that of Alice Rashleigh, wife of John (of Menabilly, the coastal house nearby, which was later the setting for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca). John built the house that is now The Ship as their 'town' house, to facilitate his mercantile activities in the port.