Home > Buckinghamshire > Great Missenden > The Crown The Crown
Date of photo: 1957	Picture source: Joan Leggett
The Crown was situated on the High Street. This pub is now in residential use.
My mum Irene was the daughter of Katie & Charlie Leggett, they were licensees of the Crown pub in Great Missenden. She remembers well seeing the author Roald Dahl walking through & occasionally calling into the crown. One night she couldn't sleep probably was watching the moon & so was looking out of the crown pub window as Roald Dahl walked past, he stopped and looked at her, standing a while in contemplation. My mum always says it was her...this moment that caused the author to write "one night, Sophie is kept awake by a moonbeam shining through her window and directly onto her pillow. She peers out of her window and first sees an enormous giant walking down her street". Yes Sophie Dahl was the inspiration for the character of Sophie in the BFG but my mum Irene Leggett, daughter to the landlords of the Crown pub in Great Missenden was the creation of the gazing out of the window during the witching hour child & therefore the Crown was the inspiration for the orphanage. On that late night wander Roald Dahl found his answer to how the BFG found Sophie, at that moment my mum was Sophie.
Ian Darkins (September 2023)
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Other Photos
Picture source: Sue McArdle