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A fact from Foxwarren Park appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 July 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Foxwarren Park(pictured) was the inspiration for Toad Hall, a location for Robin Hood and test site for the bouncing bomb?
Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
@Andrew Davidson: Not sure we should be quite so definitive as to Foxwarren being the inspiration, as opposed to one of a number of possible inspirations. If we're reflecting the sources, then there do appear to be a number of reliable ones that support the claims of other houses. KJP1 (talk) 06:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
The matter is complicated in that Kenneth Grahame presumably was inspired when writing the work and then E.H. Shepard had a separate artistic inspiration when working on the illustrations. I don't want digress too much because the subject here is Foxwarren Park, not Toad Hall. I will be continuing to work upon the topic but needed to get the DYK nomination in as there's a timetable for that process. I expect we'll tweak this to get the right form of words over the coming days. More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 06:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
I get that it's complicated, and that the inspirations for both Grahame and Shepard will probably never be definitively determined. For that reason, I think it's even more important we reflect what the sources say. The problem is we've moved from a caveated statement - Foxwarren is one of a number of sites which claim to be the inspiration for Toad Hall; to a definitive statement - Foxwarren is the inspiration for Toad Hall. I do think the claims of other houses should go back in. Regards. KJP1 (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
"the finest private zoo in the country" - the source really doesn't seem to support this claim. It seems he possessed a fine collection, one of the finest, perhaps, but I can't see anything that suggests it was the finest. KJP1 (talk) 05:47, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have updated the paragraph, adding a citation which describes it as "probably the finest one in the world". Andrew D. (talk) 06:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
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