The Enduring Appeal of Writers' Homes

In the 1980s, my father wrote a guide, Writers in Sussex, for which I took the photographs. During our research we visited the former homes of 40 or so writers. They included William Blake’s flint cottage in Felpham (“the sweetest spot on earth”, according to Blake); Rudyard Kipling’s imposing stone manor house, Bateman’s, at Burwash; Hilaire Belloc’s home, King’s Land, at Shipley, which was originally a tithe barn built by monks; and the cottage Mervyn Peake lived in while writing Titus Groan, within sight of the massive grey walls of Arundel Castle – an inspiration, perhaps, for Gormenghast. Peake is buried nearby, his gravestone inscribed with a moving line from one of his poems: “To live at all is miracle enough.”