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 Object of a Liberal Education
That man, I think, has had a liberal education who [...] is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.
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.
Stories about the British transport revolution that changed the world, from the first locomotive and the first whistle to Flying Scotsman.
Picture: © Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Heart-breaking tales of slavery, in which Britain played a shameful part; and heart-warming tales of Abolition, in which she played a courageous one.
Picture: © Wilfredor. Public domain.. Source.
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.
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.
The artistic struggles and triumphs of composers from the British Isles and abroad, many in their own words — and accompanied by their music.
Picture: © Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.