To reach Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s Glenthorne estate you have to drive down a three-mile track which drops 1,000 feet to the only piece of flat land between Porlock and Lynmouth. Here, in 1831, the Reverend Walter S. Halliday built a substantial house, hemmed in behind by the towering Devon cliffs but enjoying an uninterrupted view over the Bristol Channel to the Welsh mountains.
Halliday plays an important role in The Glenthorne Cat. Working in his library one wintry evening, Ondaatje looked up to find the reverend gentleman sitting in a nearby chair wrapped in scarf and nightgown. The ensuing conversation, as reported by Ondaatje, provides as plausible an explanation for the regularly reported appearances in those parts of the leopard-like Beast of Exmoor as any other that we are likely to hear.
Fact or fiction? Either way, this story serves as an ideal springboard for an engaging and eclectic collection of tales about leopards.
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