Virginia and Leonard Woolf: Monk's House, Rodmell, Sussex

The garden near the house.

This is a terrific place for stalkers of VW! It's very tucked away and hard to find. When the Woolfs bought it they had already bought somewhere else, but this property was to be auctioned and VW fell in love with the garden. When they bought it they had to sell the other house they had bought. The house was very small and ramshackle, and the kitchen was always prone to flooding - it's two steps down from ground level. All the floors are tiled with terracotta slabs and the walls are very thin; like a hut, and to go there when there was no heating can't have been enjoyable. The Woolfs added hot water and a toilet to the facilities. I can't imagine their servants can have been exactly thrilled with the kitchen.

The Woolfs did well here - Virginia found it a good place to write, and loved the view and the walks and Leonard took over the garden, and as their income improved, he employed a full-time gardener.

The green walls give the house a freshwater feel - and there are many artistic presents from Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell

Like other notable authors, such as Roald Dahl, Virginia wrote in a wooden “writing lodge” tucked into the orchard garden, where she was surrounded by views conducive to creative thought, in an undisturbed sanctuary. She kept a diary and there are very few entries which do not mention the garden. While Virginia was not a passionate horticulturist, her husband, Leonard, became one.

The story of the garden at Monk’s House, which was the garden of her writing life, is fascinating. It was started in 1919 and its creation illustrates the satisfaction, love and challenges that a garden provides as well as the friction occasionally generated. “The garden was sometimes 'the third person in the marriage’,” according to biographer Victoria Glendinning. Virginia would have to tear Leonard away and she would make him book “walk” time.

For Leonard, who started off as an amateur but became an expert, developing and tending the garden was totally absorbing. He would graft his own fruit trees, tend to and add to his massive collection of cacti and train his sweet peas in the way his sister-in-law, Vanessa Bell, did at Charleston, 10 miles down the road. He grew copious fruit and vegetables with the help of Percy Bartholomew, his gardener, keeping immaculate records (including detailed costings) and selling the surplus at the Women’s Institute market. When Virginia and Leonard were in London, a hamper of produce was sent up each week. Leonard was keen to learn and founded the Rodmell Horticultural Society in 1941.

The garden is lush and has delicious smells - a mini lilac tree, mint and rosemary. ~wildflowers grow among the planting. The orchard has long grasses with buttercups and bee hives, which Leonard started. There is a smooth bowls lawn facing a view of a chalk escarpment. It is lovely on a dull day, so on a sunny day it must be a veritable paradise.

it didn't occur to me to wonder why we decided to go. We had to meet A's dad somewhere - this was roughly midway - and I thought it would be interesting, to me, anyway. Here Virginia enjoyed her creative work and also had fun entertaining her many friends. Virginia and Leonard's ashes were scattered in the garden and it seems like the happy ending to a story. The National Trust can't over-prettify it because it was already very pretty. It feels like something from my grandparents' time - that time which is just out of reach, out of memory - and that's the time I find most fascinating, and I also think it was one of the best times for England, when talented people led relatively simple lives and did not strive to be extraordinarily rich.