For almost a century Bordighera also spoke English. From the mid-19th century until the eve of the Second World War, every winter thousands of Britons came to the town to escape the cold of the North: they built villas and gardens, founded a church, a library and the first tennis club in Italy, and during the months of the season they outnumbered the people of Bordighera themselves.<\/p>\n
That English Bordighera has not disappeared: you can find it walking along via Vittorio Veneto, via Regina Vittoria and via Romana. In this article you will find the story of the British colony, its figures and a walk through the places where they lived.<\/p>\n
It all started with a book. In 1855 the Ligurian writer Giovanni Ruffini, an exile and follower of Mazzini, published in Edinburgh the novel Doctor Antonio<\/em>, set among the palms of Bordighera. Its success was such that, according to Edmondo De Amicis, among the first English who came to spend the winter in Bordighera there was not one who had not read it. In 1887 the Comune made Ruffini an honorary citizen for having made known, through his writings, the beauty of the town\u2019s sky and the mildness of its climate.<\/p>\n In 1860 the first hotel opened, the Hotel d\u2019Angleterre, where the British statesman Lord John Russell stayed in 1861 and where the first Anglican services were held from 1863. With the arrival of the railway, in 1872, Bordighera became a winter resort: guests arrived in autumn and left in spring. According to the Comune, at the end of the 19th century the English colony reached around three thousand people in winter, more than the residents.<\/p>\n The English brought their world with them. They had banks, agencies, shops, cultural and sports clubs, a theatre, an English-language weekly and a bridge club. The Anglican chaplain offered tea on Thursdays, and in the grand hotels the season passed amid concerts, balls, gala evenings and tea dances. From 1883 to 1935 the Journal de Bordighera<\/em> was published, a multilingual weekly that every week printed the names of newly arrived guests and the villas where they were staying: its copies are kept at the Museo Bicknell.<\/p>\n The golden age ended with the First World War, when the hotels became military hospitals. Between the wars the colony grew ever smaller, and as the Second World War approached the last English residents were forced to return home. Their library passed to the Comune, and the town was later bombed several times. The full history of those years is in History of Bordighera<\/a>, and the story of Bordighera as a winter town in Bordighera in winter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clarence Bicknell (1842\u20131918) arrived in Bordighera in 1878 as Anglican chaplain, but soon gave up the post to devote himself to his passions: botany, watercolours of flowers, Esperanto and the study of the rock engravings of Mont Bego. In 1888 he opened the museum that bears his name on via Romana, which also became a meeting place for the colony, with concerts and charity performances. He died in 1918 at Casterino, in the Vall\u00e9e des Merveilles he had studied for years. His museum is now the headquarters of the Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri: you will find it on the Museo Bicknell<\/a> page, and you can retrace the places of his life by bike along the Ciclovia Bicknell<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Scottish writer George MacDonald (1824\u20131905), author of novels and fairy tales that inspired writers such as Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis, lived in Bordighera for over twenty years, until 1902, with his wife Louisa and their children. Their house on via Vittorio Veneto, Casa Coraggio, was one of the centres of the colony\u2019s life: readings of English poets, concerts and plays were held in its large drawing room. His wife and two daughters died in Bordighera, and here, in the English cemetery, also lie the ashes of the writer, who died in England in 1905. Casa Coraggio later became a hotel, the H\u00f4tel de la Reine, where Edmondo De Amicis died in 1908; today it is a block of flats and can only be seen from the outside.<\/p>\n In 1896 Villa Bischoffsheim, designed by Charles Garnier on via Romana, was bought by Claude Bowes-Lyon, Earl of Strathmore, who named it Villa Etelinda<\/a>. Here, as a child, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon came to visit her grandparents: the future Queen Mother and mother of Elizabeth II. At the outbreak of the First World War the family sold the villa to Queen Margherita of Savoy, who had her own residence built in its grounds, today Villa Regina Margherita<\/a>.<\/p>\n The most famous sovereign of the age, on the other hand, never stayed in Bordighera. According to the chronicles, on 4 April 1882 Queen Victoria came by carriage from Menton as far as Capo Sant\u2019Ampelio and turned back. Years later she booked a stay at the Hotel Angst, but cancelled it because of the Anglo-Boer War.<\/p>\n Many places in the town still bear the mark of the English who chose it. The Fanshawe ladies, mother and daughter, had the Anglican church built in the grounds of their villa in 1873. The merchant Charles Henry Lowe gave the town the gardens that bear his name in 1902, intended as a place of rest for the elderly and the sick, and was among the benefactors of the church and the tennis club. Edward Berry, Bicknell\u2019s nephew and British vice-consul, took up his legacy at the museum and, with his wife Margaret, described those years in the book At the Western Gate of Italy<\/em> (1931). Alongside the English there were other foreigners too: the German gardener Ludwig Winter, who made Bordighera known in the German-speaking world, and the Swiss Adolf Angst, founder of the town\u2019s most celebrated hotel.<\/p>\n The route can be walked in a couple of hours, stops included, from the centre to via Romana. Many buildings are private and can be seen from the outside: please respect the peace of those who live there.<\/p>\nLife in the colony<\/h2>\n
The figures<\/h2>\n
Clarence Bicknell, the naturalist chaplain<\/h3>\n
George MacDonald and Casa Coraggio<\/h3>\n
The Strathmores and the future Queen Mother<\/h3>\n
Queen Victoria, who only passed through<\/h3>\n
The benefactors<\/h3>\n
The walk: the places of English Bordighera<\/h2>\n
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