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The West Dorset Magazine, February 11, 2022
Property
Acclaimed writer’s peaceful retreat By MIRANDA ROBERTSON
A peaceful cottage haven in Frome Vauchurch once home to a famous writer who declared: “Noise is a pollution” has gone on the market. Riverside Cottage, a stone’s throw from Maiden Newton, was built around the 1850s, possibly on the site of a mill. From 1937 it was the home of acclaimed poet and author Sylvia Townsend Warner and her partner, the poet Valentine Ackland. “I understand they were Communists on the edge of the Bloomsbury Set,” says the current owner. Warner died in 1978, aged 84. She is still remembered fondly by many older residents. Norman House, whose family ran Maiden Newton’s village bakery from 1938 to 2005 and who still lives in Maiden Newton, said: “She was very nice. They were Communists, but Communists from the best motives. At Christmas she would come up to my mother in the bakery and she used to pay something off people’s bills. “Colin House, my cousin, used to
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: Old photographs of Riverside Cottage and, left and below, Sylvia Townsend Warner in the garden
do gardening for her and she was very generous to him. She used to have little soirees in the church and give generous donations to the
church, despite not being religious.” Warner’s Marxist leanings were sparked by the growing fascist movement at the time, and this activism informed many of her works, as did her sexuality. She is famed for many novels including The Flint Anchor, The Salutation and
Winter in the Air and she wrote many of her works at Riverside Cottage. She often wrote books and poems that would criticise the church, promote the empowerment of women and works inspired by her relationship with Ackland. Her ashes are buried with Ackland in Chaldon
