Literary tourism: Portrait of a gazebo
“Writers stamp themselves upon their possessions more indelibly than other people," said Virginia Woolf.
I spent last weekend at Sissinghurst Gardens in Kent, working in Nigel Nicolson’s wooden writing shed as part of the National Trust’s ‘Off the Grid’ summer residency project. Here, in what he called his ‘gazebo’, he wrote about his mum and dad - Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson - in the remarkable Portrait of a Marriage.
Somewhat surprisingly built to the same specifications as the Apollo 11 lunar module, it’s not as flashy as Vita’s writing tower in the nearby ‘castle’ but it does have smashing views over the nearby moat and across the fields of the surrounding countryside. Here’s what he said about it in his book Long Life:
"It is a midsummer afternoon and I am sitting in the gazebo at Sissinghurst, having locked the door to separate myself from the strolling tourists. The windows face outwards on a familiar view, my favourite since childhood. In the foreground is the angle of the moat flagged with yellow iris, then a hedgerow rose in flower, then the green of growing corn and the darker green of trees, fading into the washy blue of the horizon ridge. I can see from here only two buildings: a white oast and a red roof. The view can be little changed since Jane Austen's day. The only movement is of an elderly lady dressed in white walking toward me up from the farm track.”
Then as now there is no phone (barely even mobile coverage, a great relief), no light, no heat, no anything really except the original exceptionally sturdy desk and bookshelves, and a mahoosive map of Kent that Nigel stuck across pretty much the whole of one wall.
Philip Pullman passed his writing shed on to illustrator Ted Dewan on the understanding that only creative work is to be undertaken in it by himself or by future users, but I found it rather strange to write in somebody else’s workspace, even though Nigel is no longer with us. It felt like a rather visceral bout of literary tourism, and certainly so for the visitors who I could hear stage-whispering “Shh, look, he’s writing a book in there” (or at the very least, pretending to, apologies to some of you who mistook mid-morning daydreaming about a nice cheese and apple sandwich for deep literary cogitation).
I have some skin in the game here since several of my books – Rooms of Their Own (which gives the gazebo an entire paragraph), Book Towns, and Improbable Libraries – fall into the virtual literary tourism arena. It’s a subject in which I’m very interested and I’m not alone. As Virginia Woolf wrote in her 1911 essay Great Men’s Houses, “writers stamp themselves upon their possessions more indelibly than other people, making the table, the chair, the curtain, the carpet into their own image.” This is of course why people flock to nose around the locations where Thomas Hardy created Tess of the D’Urbervilles and JK Rowling conjured up Harry Potter. And in the auction rooms, literary memorabilia is now big business - earlier this week, the simple pine desk on which Hilary Mantel wrote Wolf Hall et al was sold by Bonhams for £5,355 (profits going to local children’s reading charities, well done that Dame).
Literary tourism has a long history – for those so inclined, the two best books I’ve read on the subject are The Author’s Effects by Nicola J Watson and Lives of Houses edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee. Alfred Lord Tennyson visited Goethe’s home in Weimar in 1865, and was fascinated by the German writer’s “sacred study”. As Tennyson found, there is something unique to be experienced in the room where it happened, the views a favoured writer looked out on, the chairs they went “oof” into, the atmosphere they created that in turn helped them create. These places provide the curious traveller more than just a peek into their owners’ interior design tastes, they offer a biographical behind the scenes insight into what was deeply significant for them in their most personal space.
I can’t honestly say I felt the spirit of Nigel Nicolson swirling around me, but it was still a very deliberate act of literary pilgrimage and I did find the spot quite inspirational. Indeed, I got a surprising amount of work done, including a really poor poem, an outline for a children’s book, and a start on something I’m going to write about Wales. So perhaps some of the magic rubbed off? This is partially after all why people visit such spots, the opportunity to be a part of these writers’ lives, take a look at the books on their shelves, relax at the familiar amount of clutter on their desks. These objects and spaces were witnesses to remarkable creation. Although I love George Bernard Shaw’s revolving garden hut at his home in Shaw’s Corner, you don’t quite feel the same kind of magic when you visit since a) nobody is allowed in and b) none of the stuff carefully curated inside is his. The gazebo, on the other hand, feels very Nigel.
What I’m reading this week: I’ve just started Index, A History of, by Dennis Duncan. Good so far and feels like it will continue to deliver.
What I read last week: I gave up on Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner which wasn’t for me in the end, but continued to really enjoy Diplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents by Paul Brummell and would strongly recommend it.
What I plan to read next week: I bought a copy of Jenny Uglow’s Words and Pictures: Writers, Artists and a Peculiarly British Tradition from the local Oxfam Bookshop and have my eye on that.
There can be something very powerful about going to an admired someone's place of creativity. I went to McCartney's house in Liverpool, where he and Lennon wrote She Loves You and more, and it made it so very much more real...and remarkable that such influential and brilliant work happened in such ordinary, everyday surroundings. I'm eternally nosey about writer's rooms, so thank you for scratching that itch with this