Next in this occasional series is Thomas Chatterton, parishioner of St. Mary Redcliffe, the 18th C poet known now more for his suicide by arsenic poisoning at the age of 17, as memorialised in Herny Wallis' Pre-Raphaelite painting, than his poetry. His hoax of 'finding' the work of a 'mediaeval' poet called Rowley that he himself had written was his undoing a few short months after he went to London, despite its apparent technical prowess.
Part of Chatterton's birthplace was spared the Blitz and is across the road from the church. Through my teenage years it sat incongruously in a pot-holed car park. The car park has improved a little, but not that much. You can poke around inside the building if you are so inclined as it is a cafe these days.
Chatterton has a modern memorial plaque in the church and an information board describing how his family was helped after his death by Coleridge and Southey, both of whom were married in St. Mary's, both facts I had entirely forgotten, if I ever knew them.
