About: Briggflatts

Briggflatts is a long poem by Basil Bunting published in 1966. The work is subtitled "An Autobiography." The title "Briggflatts" comes from the name of Brigflatts Meeting House (spelled with one "g" in Quaker circles) in a Quaker Friends meeting house near Sedbergh in Cumbria, England. Bunting visited Brigflatts as a schoolboy when the family of one of his schoolfriends lived there, and it was at this time that he developed a strong attachment to his friend's sister, Peggy Greenbank, to whom the poem is dedicated. It was first read in public on 22 December 1965 in the medieval Morden Tower, part of Newcastle town wall, and published in 1966 by Fulcrum Press. Bunting also wrote another poem with "Briggflatts" in its title, the short work "At Briggflatts meetinghouse" (1975).