The area is also criss-crossed with public footpaths, in particular the Tolkien Trail, a walk around some of the areas thought to have inspired the author during his stay at the college in the late 1940s.
He followed the regular course of philosophical studies at St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst (181890-1893) and Theology with the French Jesuits, first at Jersey and then Lyons (1897–1901).
In this period, the Rector of Stonyhurst (England) asked if the School might be allowed to affiliate itself with the Society in Russia.
After Henry's great grandfather quit Stonyhurst for Oxford, England, where he dwelled in Beam Hall, Henry's father Joseph moved to Odiham, where Henry was born.
Allen's best known plates are those after J. M. W. Turner's drawings for the ‘Rivers of France,’ 1833–5, consisting of views of Amboise, Caudebec, Havre, and St. Germain; and for the ‘England and Wales,’ 1827–32, for which he engraved the plates of Stonyhurst, Upnor Castle, Orfordness, Harborough Sands, and Lowestoft Lighthouse.
In addition to their Continental aristocratic connections, the Sherburnes of Stonyhurst were among England's oldest families, their ancestors the Mittons on the same lands having been mentioned in the Doomsday Book.