Welcome to Clay Lane
Straightforward English
An old-fashioned, commonsense education in English language and culture, adapted from pre-1960s textbooks for home and school by Yorkshire schoolmaster NL Clay.
“The course should train pupils to observe, learn more of the world they live in, think clearly, use the imagination and to speak clearly.”
NL Clay, Think and Speak (1929)
Clay Lane is a traditional British education, of the kind seen in English schools before the educational changes of the 1960s. It is inspired by textbooks written by NL Clay, Senior English Master at Ecclesfield Grammar School in Yorkshire, and used across the country from the late 1920s.
Read short passages from literature and history, many of them chosen to provide a commentary on modern events and opinions. Or try your hand at puzzles in grammar and vocabulary like those Clay set for pupils aged 12-16. How would you have got on in the fourth form?
This site is for people who appreciate our heritage of strong, plain-spoken English from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to Austen, Dickens and Kipling, who take pride in the courage and vision of our country’s heroes both small and great, and who enjoy playing with words, sentences and ideas.
Materials for the study of good, correct, straightforward English.
Traditional, pre-Sixties methods and content.
Read interesting passages from history and literature.
Practise writing your own English sentences.
Ask for help if you need it.
“If ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are to be more than catchwords, clear communication must be the rule, and not the exception. Do we want a society in which placid masses take their orders from bosses? The alternative to government by force is government by persuasion. The latter must mean that the governed can talk back to the governors.”
NL Clay, Straightforward English (1949)
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New and archive material, updated frequently. Passages for reading, brainteasers for solving, and music for listening.
Latest • February 26
Latest • February 25
Latest • February 23
From The Siege of Saint-James
This new Constable, not a little joyful of his high office, thought to do some pleasure to the Dolphin his master; and to advance his name at the first entry into his authority, he imagined no enterprise to be to him more honourable, nor to his prince more acceptable, then to void and drive out of the town of Saint-James de Beuvron, all the English nation.
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
Tales of tragedy, ambition and heroism from the Battle of Marathon and Hannibal’s passage of the Alps to Caesar’s fateful crossing of the Rubicon.
Picture: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain image.. Source.
Romance, adventure and comedy from the very best fiction writers, including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, John Buchan, and many more.
Picture: © DarrelBirkett. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Stories from the world of cricket, football and other sports, and the men and women who have played them.
Picture: © DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
The passages in this section illustrate how people have thought of the Englishman over the centuries. They include the impressions of writers from England and also from abroad.
Picture: © Trevormeisel, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Tales of scientific innovation and merchant enterprise, from steam power and life-saving medicines to new trade partners far away, and new ways to reach them.
Picture: © Maggie Stephens. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Passages of history, wonder and spiritual counsel, drawn from the Bible and from the lives of the saints and martyrs, with a special attention to those of the British isles.
Picture: © Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.