Literary Sussex

Many famous writers, past and present, have lived in Sussex over the years, and have set their stories here.  For centuries, poets have been inspired by the Sussex landscape, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was brought up in Horsham, and William Blake, who lived at Felpham and whose Jerusalem was probably written about the South Downs.

The Ashdown Forest is the setting for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories of AA Milne, inspired by his son Christopher Robin and his stuffed toys. In the forest you can find all the places where they had their adventures: Hundred Acre Wood, Poohsticks Bridge and the ‘enchanted place’ near Galleon’s Lap (Gill’s Lap), where there’s now a memorial to Milne and illustrator EH Shepard.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, lived in Crowborough and several of the stories are set in Sussex. In The Valley of Fear, Holmes investigates a murder at Birlstone Manor, based on Groombridge Place, where Conan Doyle often took part in séances. John Galsworthy, writer of The Forsyte Saga, lived at Bury in West Sussex, and Rudyard Kipling lived at Batemans in Burwash, where he wrote Puck of Pook’s Hill. Now owned by the National Trust, Bateman’s is open to the public and his study is just as he left it.

Lamb House in Rye, also open to the public, has been home to three famous writers: American novelist Henry James, who wrote The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl and The Turn of the Screw here; EF Benson, author of the Rye-set Mapp and Lucia novels, and Rumer Godden, best known for The Black Narcissus and The Greengage Summer.

Virginia Woolf lived at Monk’s House in Rodmell; Enid Bagnold, author of National Velvet, lived in Rottingdean, and HG Wells, the father of science fiction, stayed frequently at Uppark, where his mother was housekeeper, and later taught at Midhurst Grammar School.