Literary England from London to the Lake District (July 6-July 19, 2025)
London-York-Canterbury-Coventry-Whitby-Lake District-Stratford-Oxford-London
Join English literature experts as they take you on a 12 day pilgrimage through England. This trip is designed for life-long learners and will include pre-reading recommendations and pre-departure meetings so that all participants will be fully immersed in the material culture.
This encounter encourages you to engage deeply with literature and culture in the past and present as it is rooted in particular places. We will focus on the intersection of place, literature, culture, and identity.
Cost: $5000 Price is based on double-occupancy. Single rooms are possible for a supplemental fee. Price includes all entrance fees, transportation (airfare not included), breakfast, and some dinners.
Payment Schedule
April 26: $1000 to confirm your registration. Non-refundable after 5/15/2024
May 20: $2000
June 10: $2000 (remaining amount)
Proposed Itinerary
July 6: Depart USA
July 7: Arrive in London and enjoy a private afternoon walking tour of London
• Short selections of literary works about London
July 8: LONDON
Tower of London
British Library
Free afternoon to explore
Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe Theatre
July 9: LONDON
Westminster Abbey
British Museum
Free evening to explore
July 10: LONDON
Day trip to Canterbury
Canterbury Cathedral: prologue to the Canterbury Tales, T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, and Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Zeal of thy House.
July 11: YORK
Chatsworth (lunch in route to York): Pride and Prejudice
Walking tour of York
July 12: HAWORTH
Bronte Parsonage: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and poems by the Brontës
Walking the moors
Free evening in York
July 13: WHITBY
Whitby: Stoker’s Dracula and Byatt’s Possession
July 14: LAKE DISTRICT
Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount: Poetry by William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, and S. T. Coleridge
Afternoon hike on the fells
Free evening in Ambleside
July 15: LAKE DISTRICT
Lake Cruise
Hill Top: Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit
Free evening in Ambleside
July 16: STRATFORD (lunch) and OXFORD
· Stratford walk and Trinity Church
· Evensong at Christ Church College
July 17: OXFORD
· Walking tour of Oxford: Sayers’s Gaudy Night, selections by Lewis and Tolkien
· Merton College
· Magdalen College
· Blackwell’s
July 19: Final Day in London. (Optional visit to Windsor Castle or Hampton Court)
Evensong St. Paul’s Cathedral
July 19: Depart for USA
Meet your trip leaders!
Dr. Christine Colón: Professor and Chair of the English Department at Wheaton College in Illinois; has published on Austen, the Brontës, Dickens, and Sayers; has been leading study abroad tours to the UK almost every other summer for the last 20 years.
Dr. Susan Dunn-Hensley: Associate Lecturer in the English Department at Wheaton College in Illinois; has published on Shakespeare, Milton, and Fletcher, as well as English court entertainments, Renaissance queens, and pilgrimage; has taught in the Wheaton in England study abroad program