Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
Virginia Woolf spent her weekends and summers in Sussex, away from the busy literary world in London. She loved going for long countryside walks or relaxing in her garden, gaining inspiration for her novels, short stories and essays.
Where Virginia Woolf lived
Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London in 1882, she visited Lewes in 1910 for a Christmas holiday with her brother Adrian. Virginia fell in love with Sussex and rented a house in nearby Firle, calling it Little Talland House after the Cornish home where the family spent their childhood summers.
After she married the writer Leonard Woolf in 1912, Virginia lived at Asheham House near Beddingham and the Round House in Lewes, before they finally settled at Monk's House in Rodmell in 1919. This became their permanent home after they were bombed out of their London flat in 1940.
Monk's House was in poor condition when they bought it, with no bath or hot water and an outside toilet. It had attractive views, particularly over the marshes towards Mount Caburn, and a pretty garden. The Woolfs improved the building with the income from Virginia's books – ‘Mrs Dalloway' paid for indoor plumbing.
Virginia's usual routine involved working in her writing lodge in the mornings, walking on the downs or beside the river in the afternoon, and reading or writing letters and journalistic articles after tea. She would often visit her sister Vanessa Bell at Charleston Farmhouse, Firle, home of the ‘Bloomsbury Group' – friends who rejected Victorian society in search of a new approach to art, literature and life.
Throughout her life Virginia suffered from depression. Dreading the thought of invasion in World War II, she drowned herself in the River Ouse in 1941.
Leonard lived at Monk's House until his death in 1969. It is now owned by the National Trust and is open to the public during the summer.
Sussex in Woolf's books
The history and landscape around Rodmell can be seen in Virginia's work. Her novel 'Between the Acts' concerns the staging of a play at Pointz Hall, an Elizabethan manor inspired by Glynde Place and Firle Place. The play traces English history from the time of Chaucer to 1939. The portrait paintings, fish pond and nesting swallows at Monk's House are all featured in the novel. Virginia herself had helped the Rodmell Women's Institute put on a play.
Other scenes from Monk's House can be seen in the short story 'In the Orchard' (1922), which describes the sound of hymns and the squeaking weathervane at the neighbouring St Peter's Church.
An evening with friends in the garden is remembered in the essay 'The Moment: Summer's Night', published in 1966 by Leonard Woolf. Virginia's diaries are full of her life in Sussex.
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