WHEN a little girl called Lucy steps through the door of a magic wardrobe into Narnia a series of adventures begin that have enchanted children for generations.

The best-known of these stories The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been made into a major new film, which is being shown at Malvern Cinema from December 16 and looks set to be the Christmas blockbuster.

The story is about four children evacuated from London during the war. An old wardrobe in a spare room proves to be the gateway to another world, a world of magic and talking beasts and eternal winter.

Here the children battle evil in the form of the White Witch and meet Aslan, the great lion and true ruler of Narnia.

First published in 1950, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the most enduringly popular children's books ever written.

Its author CS Lewis had many links with Malvern.

Peter Smith, director of the Autumn in Malvern Festival, who has researched the CS Lewis-Malvern connection, said Lewis, who went to a prep school in Malvern and later Malvern College, loved the Malvern Hills, which reminded him of the Mountains of Mourne in his native Northern Ireland.

He regularly walked in the hills with George Sayer, head of English at Malvern College and a former student of his at Oxford.

Lewis would stop for a drink in Malvern's pubs, including The Unicorn, which is to have a Malvern Civic Society blue plaque to commemorate him next year.

Malvern's Victorian gas lamps were the inspiration for the famous lamppost in the story.

Mr Smith thinks the lamppost which used to stand at the junction of College Road and Abbey Road could have been the one Lewis remembered, as it stood on its own in the middle of the road very close to where Lewis went to school.

In 1939, Lewis had some children evacuated to his home The Kilns in Oxford. It was this experience that many believe inspired the Oxford academic to write stories for children.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, his first book for children, begins with four children arriving at the home of an old professor . . .