Posted in Blogroll, Bloomsbury, Monk's House, tagged Just Friends, Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf on Wednesday 29 September 2021| 1 Comment »
Oh, what a damned bore!” Virginia Woolf, 39, had written to a friend this past summer. She had been ill—and not working—for so long. But now that it is autumn, with lovely weather and long walks out here in the countryside, she is feeling better and writing better than before. Monk’s House, Rodmell Virginia and […]
“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, late September, 1921, Monk’s House, Rodmell, East Sussex — SuchFriends Blog
Posted in diaries, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf, tagged christmas, diaries, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf on Wednesday 25 December 2019| 1 Comment »
A Virginia Woolf Word Portrait by Akron, Ohio artist John Sokol received as a Christmas gift in 2016. The words of “A Room of One’s Own” form her visage.
How did Virginia Woolf celebrate Christmas? What thoughts did that day bring to her mind? I thumbed through the edited versions of her diaries to find out.
Editor Anne Olivier Bell includes explanations of where Virginia and Leonard were at Christmas through the years. But while the edited diaries include three entries for days near Christmas, only two of Virginia’s entries were written on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
Here is a synopsis of where the Woolfs spent Christmas from 1917 through 1940, along with what they did and what Virginia wrote.
1917: Leonard and Virginia are at Asheham for Christmas, the rented country house in East Sussex where they spent weekends and holidays from 1912 until 1919. (D1 93)
1916-1922: No mention of the Woolfs’ Christmas is included in Volumes I or II of the edited diaries.
1923: Leonard and Virginia spend Christmas at Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex, the 16th-century home they began occupying in 1919. (D2 278)
1924: The Woolfs are again at Monk’s House, arriving on Christmas Eve and bringing Angus Davidson with them. Virginia had collaborated with Quentin Bell to produce a Christmas Supplement to the Charleston Bulletin. It recorded scenes in the life of Duncan Grant. (D2 327)
1925: The Woolfs spend Christmas at Charleston, since Monk’s House is in the midst of alterations. Virginia and Quentin again collaborated on a written piece, this time depicting scenes from the life of Clive Bell. (D3 53)
Vanessa Bell painting of Woolf knitting in an armchair at Asheham
1926: Virginia and Leonard spend Christmas in Cornwall at Eagle’s Nest, Zennor with Ka and Will Arnold-Forster. (D3 119)
1927: The Woolf take the train from London to Lewes on Christmas Eve, then drive to Charleston. They spend three nights there before going back to Monk’s House. Vanessa and Clive are away, spending Christmas with his widowed mother in Wiltshire. (D3 169)
1928-1930: No mention of Christmas is included in Volume III of the diaries for these years.
1931: The diary for this year includes the only entry written on Christmas Day. It reads in part:
Friday Xmas morning
Lytton is still alive this morning. We thought he could not live through the night. It was a moonlit night . . . This may be the turn, or may mean nothing. We are lunching with the Keynes’. Now again all ones sense of him flies out & expands & I begin to think of things I shall say to him, so strong is the desire for life—the triumph of life…
Talk to L. last night about death: its stupidity; what he would feel like if I died. He might give up the Press; but how one must be natural. And the feeling of age coming over us: & the hardship of losing friends; & my dislike of the younger generation; & then I reason, how one must understand. And we are happier now. (D4 55)
1932-1935: The Woolfs are at Monk’s House for Christmas. In 1933, Vita Sackville-West and her two sons are guests for tea. (D4 133, 195, 266, 360)
1936-1938: Virginia and Leonard are again at Monk’s House. In 1936, they have lunch and tea with Lydia and Maynard Keynes, beginning a Christmas tradition. This year, the tea is at Tilton. In 1937, the Woolfs host lunch for the four of them. In 1938, tea is at Tilton and Christmas dinner at Charleston. (D4 44, 122, 193)
1939: The Woolfs are at Monk’s House and bicycle to Charleston in a fog for Christmas dinner. (D4 252)
1940: At Monk’s House, Virginia pens a two-part entry dated Tuesday 24 December, which contrasts the soberness of life during wartime with the natural beauty of the countryside.The second portion reads in part:
[Later] 24th Dec. Christmas Eve, & I didnt like to pull the curtains so black were Leonard & Virginia against the sky…and then the walk by the wall; & the church; & the great tithe barn. How England consoles & warms one, in the deep hollows, where the past stands almost stagnant. And the little spire across the fields…
Yes, our old age is not going to be sunny orchard drowse. By shutting down the fire curtain, though, I find I can live in the moment; which is good; why yield a moment to regret or envy or worry? Why indeed? (D5 346)
The doorway to Virginia Woolf’s bedroom on a sunny July day at Monk’s House, Rodmell, Sussex.
Posted in Monk's House, Virginia Woolf, tagged Literature Cambridge, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf on Thursday 1 August 2019| 11 Comments »
Our driver dropped us off in Rodmell after our three-hour trip and we literally headed down The Street. After a brief walk, we arrived at the front gate of the country home that Virginia and Leonard occupied, beginning in 1919.
It was magical. 
We ate lunch in the garden, watched a dramatic reading of a scene from Between the Acts, with Virginia’s Writing Lodge as a backdrop, toured the ground floor of the home fitted out with the Woolfs’ belongings, and wandered through the garden filled with colorful and profuse blooms.
Follow along as I share some photos from our day.
Front gate of Monk’s House
The path behind the Monk’s House gate
As the Monk’s House guidebook states, “Books dominated the house.” And books are the first thing you see as you enter through the low back doorway. They line the stairs to the second floor.
Off to the left is the original Monk’s House sitting room, furnished with pieces ranging from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The still life design on the fire screen is by Duncan Grant, with the needlework by his mother, Ethel Bartle Grant. The upholstered armchair to its right was Virginia’s favorite, featuring a print by Vanessa Bell.
Another view of the original Monk’s House sitting room, which was created when the Woolfs knocked down a partition wall in 1926. It combined areas for reading, writing, and eating. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted the dining table — with its geometric design of criss-cross strokes — and four chairs in the early 1930s.
The square coffee table in the center of the room is topped with tiles by Duncan Grant. They depict Venus at her toilet.
A table and six painted chairs with needlework panels designed by Vanessa Bell dominate the dining room. The needlework panels depict bowls of flowers against a window. Grant’s mother completed the embroidery.
The Monk’s House dining room fireplace
The oil portrait of Virginia Woolf painted by Vanessa Bell in 1912. It hangs on a wall between the stairway and the dining room at Monk’s House.
The doorway, framed with roses, that leads from the garden to Virginia Woolf’s bedroom at Monk’s House
Virginia Woolf’s bedroom was part of an extension to Monk’s House built in 1929. It truly was a room of her own as one had to enter it from the garden, as in the photo above.
The fireplace in Virginia Woolf’s ground floor bedroom is decorated with tiles that were a gift from Vanessa Bell. They depict a ship with a lighthouse in the distance.
Virginia Woolf’s Writing Lodge, built in 1934 and and extended in the 1950s by Leonard for his companion Trekkie Parsons. The new space is now used as an exhibition room.
This table sits inside the Writing Lodge covered with her tortoiseshell glasses, folders with handwritten labels that she used for her manuscripts, pen and ink, newspapers, and wads of rumpled paper.
Just one view of the extensive Monk’s House garden, lovingly tended by Leonard, with the central part consisting of a series of small spaces enclosed by plants and joined by a network of narrow paths.
The Millstone Terrace, whose name comes from the millstones the Woolfs found in the garden.
The Fish Pond, one of three ponds Leonard installed, this one on a narrow strip of south-facing garden enclosed on three sides by flint walls.
The lawn at Monk’s House where the Woolfs played bowls and visitors today continue the tradition.
Posted in Between the Acts, Monk's House, Vanessa Bell, Woolf Courses, tagged Charleston, Literature Cambridge, Monk's House, Virginia Woolf on Monday 22 July 2019| 1 Comment »
Our marvelous Literature Cambridge course on Virginia Woolf’s Gardens ended last Friday. But perhaps the best was yet to come.
Our class, along with some of those enrolled in this week’s Fictions of Home class, went on an all-day outing to Monk’s House, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s home in Rodmell, and Charleston, the nearby home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and others. Beautiful, incredibly moving, and breathtaking.
I’m traveling today, so only have time to post these tweets. But I promise to provide more about the trip after I am back in a room of my own.
We had a marvellous visit to @CharlestonTrust and @MonksHouseNT yesterday, with a great reading from *Between the Acts*. Sad to see the end of a brilliant week on Woolf, but we are looking forward to the next course, Fictions of Home. https://t.co/KEpszCapwB pic.twitter.com/RB10qkcNaq
— Literature Cambridge (@LitCamb) July 21, 2019
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The gardens at @CharlestonTrust and @MonksHouseNT just get better and better. Talk about Bloomsbury living up to the name. pic.twitter.com/rxA7f13SsN
— K Jakubowicz (@KJakubowicz) July 20, 2019
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To @MonksHouseNT and Charleston w/ @LitCamb today. Beautiful and touching for lovers of #virginiawoolf & #vanessabell & the Bloomsbury Group. pic.twitter.com/GYszV2YMkw
— Blogging Woolf (@woolfwriter) July 20, 2019
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From brilliant scholar to good sport & impromptu actress, @KJakubowicz shines “on stage” @MonksHouseNT in impromptu performance of scene from Virginia Woolf’s “Between the Acts” during our @LitCamb outing today. Bravo! pic.twitter.com/BMUweT0UFt
— Blogging Woolf (@woolfwriter) July 20, 2019
Posted in A Room of One's Own, events, Monk's House, Rooms of Our Own, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, tagged A Room of One's Own, Malvern Garden Buildings, Monk's House, Monk's House Lodge, RHS Chlesea Flower Show, Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain on Thursday 23 May 2019| Leave a Comment »
To mark the 90th anniversary of the first publication of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Malvern Garden Buildings has created a writing retreat inspired by Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House in Rodmell for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which runs through May 25.
Virginia Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House
The shed, which was created with the help of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain and Monk’s House, was unveiled by Woolf’s great-niece Cressida Bell on Press Day, May 20.
It is painted a dove grey color and features double French doors opening onto a deck, as does the Monk’s House Lodge.
Inside, the lodge is furnished with a desk in the spirit of Woolf, an armchair with a tray, and a bookcase filled with a set of volumes covered in marbled paper — as was Woolf’s Shakespeare collection. Completing the look are writing paraphernalia and other objects from the 1920s and 1930s.
Once you view Malvern’s creation, I guarantee you will want one for your own back garden. I know I do.
Read more about the project and view photos as well.
A screenshot of the Malvern Garden Buildings Facebook post, as shared by the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.
