What Beverley Nichols the writer did while living in Ashtead

Once the seasonal festivities are over, you are warmly invited to the first Society event of the New Year on Friday, 19 January at the Abraham Dixon Hall of the Letherhead Institute. Starting time 7.30pm for coffee before the lecture.

Richard Hughes will be speaking on Beverley Nichols, Ashtead’s Forgotten Celebrity, who lived at Merry Hall, the Georgian manor house in Agates Lane for ten years after World War 2. Between 1920 and 1982, Nichols (1898-1983) wrote more than 60 books and plays and regular magazine articles. His works included novels, short stories, essays, children's books, non-fiction on travel, politics, religion, cats, parapsychology, and autobiography. He also composed musicals. Among his best remembered works now are his gardening books. He lived at Merry Hall from 1946 until 1956 and wrote about its renovation.