Cotswold Authors & Books

Stephen Ponty

BIO STEVE PONTY

Steve hails from Pontypridd, at the lower end of the Rhondda Valleys of Wales (renowned, not unlike Dwarves, for their proud mining history), with Grammar School education and background in Welsh language and culture. Steve studied Romance languages, specifically Latin and French literature and poetry for entry to Cambridge University in use of English,leading to a Law Degree.

Steve suffered City of London experience as a corporate/commercial lawyer for longer than he cares to remember.

Work abroad in Bermuda lead to a return to England in 2003 for family reasons, and residence in Broadway, the village famed for connection with American artists and writers, and known as the jewel of the Cotswolds. Over some 9 years, Steve acquired knowledge of a comparison between the maps of Middle-earth and Mother-earth and of sites within Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire, (all three 'shires'), with discovery on Mother-earth of the stations on Frodo's journey - from Hobbiton to Rivendell - through 'the Shire' imagined by J.R.R.Tolkien in The Lord of The Rings.

Steve's first published book is 'Magic Mirror Maps' with regard to the Maps of the Wilderland in 'The Hobbit' and their relation to the Maps of Wales, revealing the same concept underlying Steve's future writings about The Lord of The Rings.

The truth missed for so long by commentators on Professor Tolkien's works  is that the Maps are reversed from maps of Mother-earth to the maps of Middle-earth in The Hobbit and in The Lord of The Rings.

Take a look into Steve's 'Magic Mirror Maps'.

Middle-Earth in Magic Mirror Maps by Broadway author Steve Ponty is a fresh look at the Maps of the Wilderland in The Hobbit, leading to the discovery that Professor Tolkien drew the imaginary maps from the Map of Wales back to front, or in reverse.
'They are on their way to visit the land of their fathers, away east beyond Mirkwood, put in Gandalf...'

Gandalf's mention of the 'land of their fathers' is, by translation of its National Anthem, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien's hidden clue to the geography of Wales, which we learn the Professor loved, including its language.

The maps of the Shire in The Lord of The Rings are drawn likewise, of England.

The Author has spent over 9 years researching the journey Professor JRR Tolkien undertook in Worcestershire and the surrounding Shire counties which gave him the inspiration for these well known and much acclaimed works, translated into virtually every language worldwide. The Lord of the Rings is the biggest selling book of the 20th Century.

The Films by Peter Jackson are legendary.

The Cotswold connections include Chipping Norton (Hobbiton), Moreton in Marsh (Bree), Upper Quinton (Weathertop), Bredon Hill (Trollshaws) and the Malvern Hills (Misty Mountains, with Great Malvern very clearly mapped for Rivendell) all have their part to play in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien followers will recall Archet (Chipping Camden), Combe (Blockley) and Staddle (Stow on the Wold), of Breeland, indeed all in the vicinity of Moreton-in-Marsh.

Over the Welsh border, we have the Wye Valley about Tintern for Lothlorien and The Forest of Dean for Fangorn Forest.

All quite easily identifiable if you reverse the Map of the Shire and look at it back to front.

The book is widely available in Broadway and online. Steve is happy to sign copies through us; or find him at The Lygon Arms which he uses for a hobbit hole most days.

The Secret Shire of Cotswold published 1st June 2017

A Broadway author’s work of ten years has finally been published: ‘The Secret Shire of Cotswold’ was released as of 1st June , (50 years from the Sergeant Pepper album) making it writer Steve Ponty’s second book to be produced after ‘Magic Mirror Maps’.

Steve Williams, whose pen name is Steve Ponty, was born in Pontypridd in Wales, but now lives in Broadway in the Cotswolds.  He has spent the last ten years researching the topography of the Cotswolds and comparing it with the Shire of Middle Earth in Professor J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  He discovered that in many cases the maps of Middle Earth reflect those of Mother Earth, but in reverse.

‘The Secret Shire of Cotwold’ follows the journey of Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship from Hobbiton to Rivendell, Chipping Norton to Great  Malvern, according to Steve.  Along the way Steve compares various places to those in the famous book.  For example, the Rollright Stones are the setting for the Barrow Downs, Meon Hill is the site for Weathertop and Moreton-in-Marsh is the curfew town of Bree.

Steve also explores the history, myths and legends of the Cotswolds, making for, hopefully, an enjoyable read.  His two companions, Gollum and Smeagol, follow him throughout with, again hopefully, humorous commentary, making it not only informative but (as Gollum would say) . . . mos-ss ammews-ssing, . . . wiv me innit . . .
(Smeagol . . . wiv us innit, My Luv, ver bowf of us is innit, My Luvvs . . .)

For anyone interested in Steve’s work, please visit his website www.steveponty.com.

Jane Bingham

Jane Bingham writes on history and art. A prolific author of books for young people, she has also written on English heritage for the national and local press. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.

Jane lived in Stonesfield (important location for supply of Cotswold roofing stones) in the 1970s for nearly five years. Since then, she has lived in Oxford and made frequent trips to the Cotswolds, for walking, cycling and exploring.

She worked in Eynsham for 11 years in the 1990s (just outside the borders of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), there she was an editor at Usborne Publishing.

For the past five years, she has had the pleasure of spending a few weeks each year in Bourton-on-the-Water based at Harrington House. Jane works as a holiday leader for HF holidays in addition she does some work for a company called Cotswold Walks, and leads special walking tours in the Cotswolds and occasionally she posts blogs on Cotswold topics on the Cotswold Walks website.

In the future she will be doing some story readings in Hidcote Manor Gardens in May 2015.

Jane's latest book 'The Cotswolds - A Cultural History' looks beyond the image of a picture-perfect rural idyll, she reveals a complicated history of the Cotswolds and of the landscape of this ever-popular tourist destination that reflects the history of the nation.

Cotswold Authors