While we had visited nearby Charleston, home of the Bloomsbury set a couple of times, we had never visited nearby (six miles distance) Monk’s House. till now Virginia and Leonard Woolf bought the simple cottage in 1919. They had been married seven years. Virginia wrote four of her best-known books there: Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and The Waves.
Virginia found it a place of calm: how happy I am how calm, for the moment how sweet life is with L here, in its regularity and order, and the garden and the room at night and music and my walks and writing easily and interestedly.
The house had many disadvantages. It was small, it was damp, it flooded, it had no indoor plumbing and no electricity. However, it had a wild but large garden and splendid views over the South Downs. Gradually, with the royalties from their books, they did the house up. Mrs. Dalloway, for example, paid for an indoors toilet. They built an extension. and a lodge – Virginia’s Room of Her Own (see photo above right. It is now behind glass, hence the not very good photo).
The house was reputedly very messy, with books everywhere. (The books have since been removed but replaced. by National Trust books, i.e. old-looking books bought in bulk. I was struck by the four volume set of the Intimate Memoirs of Colonel House – House was Woodrow Wilson’s adviser – presumably acquired because no-one in the National Trust had any idea of who Colonel House was). A few have been judiciously placed on the stairs but, as you cannot go upstairs (the building is permanently occupied by a National Trust person for security reasons) it is relatively safe.
The pictures at top left and immediately left show that there were some works of art there. (The house is very small so it is difficult to take photos). Some were by the Bloomsbury set from nearby Charleston, particularly, Virginia’s sister and Vanessa’s lover Duncan Grant.
Virginia committed suicide in the nearby River Ouse. After her death, Leonard lived there for twenty-eight years, till his death. Much of the time he was with his lover, the artist Trekkie Parsons. Like many women artists, she has faded into obscurity, except for her relationship with Leonard. Some of her paintings are in the house, while many others have disappeared. Work is now taking place to track them down.