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Grantchester, Cambridgeshire: Rupert Brooke, The War Poet

Rupert Brooke was the first of the famous war poets to die during the war

Rupert Brooke was the first of the famous war poets to die during the war. Studying at King鈥檚 College he moved to Orchard House, Grantchester, where his creative work thrived not only as a poet but also a scholar, dramatist, literary critic, travel writer and political activist.

His hours were often spent in the Orchard at Grantchester in the company of the Grantchester group including Virginia Woolf, Lord Bryon, Bertum Russell and W. B. Yeats.

In March 1915 on a troop-ship bound for Gallipoli he sustained an insect bite which became infected and on 23 April 1915, aged 27, he died from blood poisoning. That same evening he was buried in an olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros, where a monument has since been built over his grave.

Just a few months earlier he had written 鈥楾he Soldier鈥 with its famous opening line 鈥淚f I should die, think only this of me鈥.

Location: Grantchester, Cambridgeshire CB3 9ND
Image of Rupert Brooke writing in the garden of the Old Vicarage, Grantchester, courtesy of Lorna Beckett from Rupert Brooke Society
Interview with Dr Sean Lan

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