My Virginia Woolf Pilgrimage

 

Last fall, Marilyn brought me a gift, a tall candle of the "Secular Saint Virginia, Patron Saint of Lighthouses, Thursday Evenings, and a Room of One's Own." I laughed out loud when I first saw it and especially when I read the words on the glass. Still, as the new year began and I created a kind of altar to inspire my creative work, I placed the candle in the center, and I light it first each time.

As the candle says, her Saint's Day is today, January 25, Virginia Woolf's birthday.

Back in 2009, I spent the spring semester in England, in Canterbury, Kent. I loved living in a city about which Woolf wrote in a letter, "There's no lovelier place in the world than Canterbury." It seemed just right that it was in that medieval city, in the window of the Chaucer Bookshop, that I found a complete set of Woolf's letters published by the Hogarth Press.

I am in awe of Woolf's writing, laugh out loud at some of her letters, and love to get lost in the long sentences of Mrs. Dalloway.

During that semester in Canterbury, I went on what I called a Virginia Woolf Pilgrimage, visiting as many sites related to her as I could. Because I didn't want to drive on the "wrong side" of the road, I got to the more remote sites by buying gas and lunch for a local friend who liked opportunities to take road trips in her Italian Fiat--but had no interest in Woolf and was merely amused by my infatuation.

Today, on Virginia Woolf's 136th birthday, I'm sharing with you some photos from my pilgrimage. Come along with me to the streets where Woolf lived.

The house where Virginia Stephen was born, 22 Hyde Park Gate, London.

The front door at 22 Hyde Park Gate.

Three of the blue historical markers seen around London mark this house. 

Woolf's father and sister were also significant presences.

A view of the street where Woolf spent her early years.

Across the street from the Stephens' home is the house where Winston Churchill lived and died.

I was on a field trip at the British Museum with my students when our tour guides discovered I love Woolf. They offered to take me to 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, where the Stephens moved from Hyde Park Gate. We walked over quickly as it got dark, and went into an art school that was now occupying the space. 

Though I was looking out the window a century after Woolf did, I still thrilled at the thought that I was seeing a view she might have, too.

Two of Vanessa Bell's paintings hung in what appeared to be a conference room.  The guides suggested mimicking the action in the paintings, and the two of them posed with the first painting. 

I am seated here while one of the guides stands next to me.

In the village of Rodmell, in Sussex.

Woolf's desk in her writing lodge.

At Monk's House with my Hogarth Press copy of Mrs. Dalloway purchased there.

The grounds of Monk's House.

Vita Sackville West's home, Sissinghurst, which Virginia Woolf visited. 

The original Hogarth Press, now at Sissinghurst.

Virginia and Leonard Woolf signed the guest book at Sissinghurst in September 1932.