The picturesque village of Rodmell on the banks of the Ouse, not far from the port of Newhaven, has had a colourful history.
One episode of its history is dominated by the famous literary giant Virginia Woolf.
Virginia purchased two properties in East Sussex. She bought the ‘Round House’, a peculiar little circular residence on Pipe Passage in Lewes, built in 1802 as a windmill, which she never lived in.
The other was 17th century Monk’s House in Rodmell, where she both lived and worked in the 1920s and ‘30s. Her work ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is considered a literary classic among a number of other critically acclaimed titles. You can often find overseas academics wandering the streets of Lewes, asking about the whereabouts of Virginia Woolf’s ‘Residence’.
Virginia was a controversial character and part of the Bloomsbury Set, a group of trend setting Edwardian movers and shakers who held a different and radical philosophy of life, based on the arts.
Virginia’s sister Vanessa Bell was the owner of Charleston Farm House in the village of Firle on the way to Eastbourne, and reports of hedonistic parties, incest and licentiousness abounded even during Virginia’s life time.
Most of her writing however was done at Monk’s House and both the ‘summer house’ writing lodge and the main house are these days open to visitors.
Indeed, the site of those naughty parties, Charleston Farm House, is also open to the general public and hosts literary events.
Rodmell, however, has also been a scene of other tragedy over the years. The cricketers in the novel ‘England, Their England’ only just managed to tie a match with the London side, a clergyman was ousted from his living by Charles II because he continued to preach Cromwellian Puritanism, and tragically it was where Virginia committed suicide in 1941.
Aged 59, her artistic temperament and her struggles with mental ill health are well documented and the stress of the life she led with husband Leonard (who continued to live in Monk’s House until 1969) became too much.
She went for an afternoon walk through the East Sussex countryside she loved so well, then headed for the River Ouse which flows just south of the village, waded into it and drowned.
Relatively isolated, modern day Rodmell has not changed much from that era. It has the usual array of societies to keep the villagers occupied. The pub, The Abergavenny Arms, still serves a decent pint and up until very recently, the local Blacksmith plied his trade just opposite.
Despite all, Jane Marple will forever cycle its narrow streets and the River Ouse will continue to flow down to the Channel, undisturbed by anything other than the tide.
She walked into the Ouse and drifted away