Keats-Shelley 200 Event: Winchester Water Meadows ‘To Autumn’ Walk

Sunday 11 July 2021, 12.00pm - 3.00pm

Between 2020 and 2022, the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association led Keats-Shelley 200, a programme of events to mark the 200th anniversary of the deaths of the John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Activities took place both in the UK and in Italy. Key projects included Blue Apple Theatre’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein followed by a Winchester water meadow walk tracing the footsteps of Keats.  Events were disrupted by the Covid pandemic but on Sunday 11 July 2021, the long-overdue Winchester Water Meadows Walk took place along the path of the beautiful River Itchen and the 18th century water meadows to follow in the footsteps of English Romantic poet, John Keats, through the beautiful natural habitat of the Winchester water meadows and to discover the scenery that inspired Keats in writing one of his most famous poems, To Autumn.

The experience continued in the Courtyard garden, outside Winchester College where two members of the cast of Blue Apple Theatre’s production of Frankenstein, Sam Dace and Lawrie Morris, performed extracts from the play.

Keats-Shelley 200 Event: Frankenstein toured to Rome

15 and 16 October 2022 at St Stephen’s School Lyceum

Also featured in the film are some extracts from Blue Apple’s production of Frankenstein and the trip to Rome in 2022 where it was presented as a touring production at St Stephens International School.

Keats-Shelley 200 was also an opportunity for the KSMA to provide an insight into what the association does and inspire the next generation of poets and creatives. Due to the global pandemic, many of the activities moved into a digital format and so the KSMA commissioned a series of films as part of the Keats-Shelley 200 project. These were pulled together into this new documentary film, presented by Keats-Shelley 200 Ambassador and Trustee, Reeta Chakrabarti.

The film below features poetry readings by: Polly Edsell, Stephanie Norgate, Tom Palmer, Fred Fergus, Adrian B. Earle and Simon Armitage.

See more about #KeatsShelley200 at Keats-Shelley Memorial Association