Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)
Enid Bagnold wrote plays, novels and non-fiction, using her Rottingdean home as the setting for her famous book 'National Velvet' and other stories.
Where Bagnold lived
Enid Algerine Bagnold was born in Kent in 1889. Her father was in the army and Enid spent part of her childhood in Jamaica. After finishing school in Paris, she studied art, before working as a Red Cross nurse in World War I.
In 1920 she married the head of Reuters news agency, Sir Roderick Jones. They led a rich, aristocratic life and knew many of the famous writers of the period.
In 1923 they bought a country home in Rottingdean called North End House. Sir Roderick extended the home by purchasing the neighbouring building, Gothic House. He also bought Rudyard Kipling's house The Elms on the village green, and a racing stable. They had four children and it was the family's involvement with horses which would inspire Enid to write 'National Velvet'.
After Sir Roderick died in 1962 Enid suffered from ill health. She sold her London home in 1969 and lived most of her remaining years in Rottingdean. In 1970 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded a CBE in 1976. She died in London in 1981.
Sussex in Bagnold’s books
'Alice and Thomas and Jane' (1930) was the only book Enid wrote specifically for children. It describes the adventures of three children aged 5, 8 and 7 who live in a large house in Rottingdean.
Horses were a large part of the lives of the Jones children. They competed in gymkhanas and had a piebald horse which was very good at jumping fences. In 1935 Enid published 'National Velvet' featuring 14-year-old Velvet Brown, who wins a piebald in a raffle and – disguised as a boy – rides the horse to victory in the Grand National. She is trained by butcher's assistant Mi Taylor, who is based on the Jones' groom Bernard McHardy.
The story is set near Worthing, but Rottingdean residents recognised that the fictional Browns were inspired by the family of the local butcher, the Hilders. Mrs Brown, like Mrs Hilder, is a very good swimmer. Velvet and her sisters are modelled on the Hilder children and the horse-riding daughters of General Asquith who rented The Elms each summer. The book was illustrated by Enid's daughter Laurian and made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor in 1944.
Life in North End House and its cluttered garden room were included Enid's play 'The Chalk Garden', which was put on stage in London and New York.
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