Monk's House
Encyclopedia
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Rodmell
Rodmell is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located three miles south-west of Lewes, on the Lewes to Newhaven road and is situated by the west banks of the River Ouse...
, three miles (4.8km) south-east of Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
, East Sussex
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The writer Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
and her husband, the political activist, journalist and editor Leonard Woolf
Leonard Woolf
Leonard Sidney Woolf was an English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.-Early life:...
, purchased the house in 1919, and received many important visitors connected to the Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
, including T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
, Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
and Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
.
Virginia's sister, the artist Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf.- Biography and art :...
, lived at nearby Charleston Farmhouse
Charleston Farmhouse
Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury group is an example of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant's decorative style within a domestic context and represents the fruition of over sixty years of artistic creativity...
in Firle
Firle
For the suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, see Firle, South Australia.Firle is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. Firle refers to an old-English/Anglo-Saxon word fierol meaning overgrown with oak...
from 1916, and though contrasting in style, both houses became important outposts of the Bloomsbury Group.
Life at Monk's House
Mount Caburn
Mount Caburn is a 480-foot isolated peak, one of the highest landmarks in East Sussex, England, about one mile east of Lewes overlooking the village of Glynde. It is an isolated part of the South Downs, separated by Glynde Reach, a tributary of the River Ouse.-Enclosure:On the summit of Caburn...
.
The Woolfs spent increasing amounts of time in Rodmell, eventually living there full-time from 1940 when their flat in Mecklenburgh Square
Mecklenburgh Square
Mecklenburgh Square is a Grade II listed public square located in the King's Cross area of central London. It is notable for the number of historic terraced houses that face directly onto the square....
, Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
, London, was damaged during a raid. The solitude of village life allowed Virginia respite from the tumult of London, and it is in the small wooden lodge at the bottom of the garden that many of her novels took shape. Her final novel, Between the Acts, published posthumously in July 1941, is steeped in references to Rodmell and the traditions and values of its villagers.
Virginia documented her life at the house in photographs. Preserved in the Monk's House Albums, these include portraits and group pictures of many who visited the house.
In March 1941, Virginia committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by drowning herself in the nearby Ouse
River Ouse, Sussex
The River Ouse is a river in the counties of West and East Sussex in England.-Course:The river rises near Lower Beeding and runs eastwards into East Sussex, meandering narrowly and turning slowly southward...
. Leonard continued to live at Monk's House until his death in 1969, and played an active role in village life; both he and Virginia had been members of the Socialist Party, and he became a manager of the village school in Rodmell in the 1930s. He was also treasurer and president of the Rodmell and District Horticultural Society.
Monk's House today
Following Leonard's death, the house was bequeathed to his close friend, the artist Trekkie ParsonsTrekkie Parsons
Trekkie Parsons was an English artist and lithographer, perhaps best known as the lover of Leonard Woolf after his wife Virginia's death.- Background :...
, née Ritchie, who sold it to University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
in 1972. The house was eventually turned over to the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
in 1980, and is open to the public twice-weekly. It is administered and largely maintained on the Trust's behalf by tenant curators Caroline and Jonathan Zoob. The ground floor including sitting room, dining room, kitchen and Virginia's bedroom are on display and Virginia's writing lodge can be found at the bottom of the garden with views across to Mount Caburn
Mount Caburn
Mount Caburn is a 480-foot isolated peak, one of the highest landmarks in East Sussex, England, about one mile east of Lewes overlooking the village of Glynde. It is an isolated part of the South Downs, separated by Glynde Reach, a tributary of the River Ouse.-Enclosure:On the summit of Caburn...
.