Sounding Out Shelley

In March 2025 Carol Hayton and David Hide met up with Emma and Anna from Sounding Out Horsham to record a podcast about Shelley.  David writes:

Recording the podcast provided us with a great opportunity to talk about Shelley's early life in Horsham and why the Shelley Memorial Project continues to fundraise for a lasting memorial to Shelley in the town most closely associated with his life. 

In this wide ranging interview we talk about Shelley's family history and the series of events that led to his estrangement, his significance as both a leading  romantic and preeminent radical poet, our own personal journeys to Shelley and why the Shelley Memorial Project believes that this towering literary figure deserves to be remembered in his home town of Horsham and what we are doing about it.

I would like to thank Emma and Anna for providing us with this opportunity to promote the Project via this excellent podcast.  I have included their introduction to the podcast and a link to the programme. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we loved making it!

Percy Bysshe Shelley with The Shelley Memorial Project - Episode 36 | Sounding Out Horsham

English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place in Warnham in 1792, spending his formative years at his family home. His family is well-connected with the Horsham District too. While he wrote famous poems such as Ozymandias, Queen Mab and To A Skylark and influenced many poets and writers, including Robert Browning, WB Yeats, Thomas Hardy and George Bernard Shaw, Shelley - whose second wife Mary Shelley authored the famous gothic novel Frankenstein - never knew fame during his lifetime. 

Despite Percy Bysshe Shelley's posthumous influence and literary reputation, many of us are unaware of the writer's connection to Horsham and know little about his life, other than his works. However, our guests for this episode - Carol Hayton and David Hide - directors of The Shelley Memorial Project - are among those hoping to change that. 

The Shelley Memorial Project wants to create a lasting public memorial to Percy Bysshe Shelley to commemorate Horsham's famous former citizen. 

To find out more, we gathered around a table at the Shelley Arms in Broadbridge Heath to talk about Shelley, his connection to Horsham, and the project's plans to honour him.