The Author Trail

Links between some of the world's greatest writers and Kent, Sussex and France are being promoted. Library services in East Sussex, Medway, and the Somme, have created a website showing links with authors such as Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf. Other writers include Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. East Sussex Councillor Bob Tidy said: "This initiative allows people to celebrate some of the best writers in the world." The website, The Author Trail, which received EU funding, allows people to find out where writers lived and worked. It is available in English and French and includes maps so people can follow in the footsteps of authors. He said fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be able to click on the places he is associated with including Crowborough, Forest Row, Groombridge, Newhaven, Rotherfield and Winchelsea. The Sherlock Holmes creator also lived in Surrey for 10 years at Undershaw, a Grade II-listed property where repairs were being carried out last year. During his time there at the turn of the 20th Century, he wrote such classics as The Hound of the Baskervilles