The job of my dreams popped up in an email this week: Volunteer guide at Monk’s House. If I lived near Rodmell, East Sussex, I would already be signing up.
Front gate of Monk’s House
If you live near enough, here is what you need to know to have a chance to meet other Woolf enthusiasts while being surrounded by Bloomsbury treasures in the house where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived from 1919 until their deaths.
Position: House Guide and Welcoming Volunteer
Times Needed in 2003: Friday and Saturday in April and October, and Thursday to Saturday from May to September. The house is particularly short of volunteers on Saturdays.
Garden volunteer roles are popular and currently booked up. Check the National Trust volunteering website for openings.
Training: Will be provided
Who to contact: monkshouse@nationaltrust.org.uk
Got books?
Monk’s House also put out a request for books related to Virginia Woolf and/or Bloomsbury. If disposing of such volumes, they request that you consider donating them to the Monk’s House second-hand bookshop.
Woolf-related books and other items for sale at Monk’s House in July of 2019, when I last visited.
As the Monk’s House guidebook states, “Books dominated the house.” And books are the first thing you see as you enter through the back doorway. They line the stairs to the second floor.
