This former shipwright’s yard overlooking the river Fowey in Cornwall was the holiday home of the du Maurier family who purchased it in 1926 when Daphne, the middle one of three daughters, was 19 years old. She promptly fell madly in love with the place, learning to row, sail, fish and explore the area and its history.
And it was at Ferryside that her writing career began in earnest when on a wild autumnal day in 1929 she sat down by the window, a rug tucked around her knees, Daphne du Maurier began to write her first novel “The Loving Spirit”.
Years later she recalled: “The Loving Spirit was inspired by the sense of freedom that my new existence at Ferryside brought.”
