Garsington Manor

Introduction

Garsington Manor was one of the central meeting places for those artists, writers, and other members of Modernist society that were not necessarily part of the Bloomsbury Group, although several members of the Bloomsbury Group did stay at Garsington. Lady Ottoline Morrell established Garsington as the premiere meeting place for creative minds that were not members of the Bloomsbury Group. D.H. Lawrence and Frieda, Aldous Huxley, Philip Heseltine, Bertrand Russell, Clive Bell, T.S. Eliot, Siegfried Sassoon, Lytton Strachey, Vanessa Bell, Virgina Woolf, and

Roger Fry visited Garsington at various gatherings and parties hosted by Lady Ottoline.

History of Garsington   

Garsington Manor was built in approximately the 16th century on the grounds of what was Abingdon Abbey (“Garsington Manor” Historial England). The property allegedly belonged to the son of Geoffrey Chaucer, and at one time was called “Chaucers,” before it bore the name “Garsington Manor” (“Garsington Manor” Wikipedia). The manor home fell into disrepair and was used as a farmhouse until Philip Morrell, Lady Ottoline’s Husband, purchased the property in 1913, and he spent two years rebuilding the manor house before he invited his wife to join him (Darroch 157). The manor house was designed by Philip Tilden (“Garsington Manor” Historic England).

Lady Ottoline Arrives at Garsington

Lady Ottoline travels from Buxton to Garsington Manor on May 17, 1915 (Darroch 157). She was anxious and apprehensive about moving in and living at Garsington. Sarah Jobson Darroch, in Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell, describes the appearance of Garsington as Lady Ottoline arrived:

The high gabled manor, two storeys plus attics, was built of grey Cotswold stone with mullioned windows and surrounded by 20 acres of garden and farmland. Double wrought-iron gates opened straight off the road into a small gravelled courtyard leading to the front door; but the real front of the house was around the other side, overlooking the Berkshire Downs. There was a large garden sloped away through a group of ponds to an orchard, beyond which were open fields and an unobstructed view to Wittenham Clumps. It was one of the most beautiful houses in Oxfordshire, built originally, it was said, for some monastic order; it was also said that the ponds were mentioned in the Doomsday Book.” (Darroch 157)

Lady Ottoline defied tradition in many of her design choices in the house, particularly the two large drawing rooms on the ground floor of the house, where she chose to “paint one a vivid Venetian red, and the other a sea-green” (Darroch 158), making the choice to ignore the oak panelling as part of her design decisions.

 

However, the centerpiece of the property during Lady Ottoline’s time at Garsington was the grounds, which she intended to look like an Italian Garden, which Darroch describes:

Ottoline had the biggest of the ponds enlarged into a small, rectangular lake round which hedges were planted. Classical statues lined its perimeter and a larger statue was erected on an artificial island in the centre. When the hedges grew Gothic arches were cut through so people swimming or punting ot strolling could look out and see the blossoming trees in the orchard beyond. Into this arcadian setting, Ottoline, with a final flourish, introduced some peacocks to strut and preen.” (158)

Allegedly, the gardens were inspired in part by Lady Ottoline’s aunt, Mrs. Henry Scott, who lived at the Villa Capponi, near Florence, “and was probably laid out by Lady Ottoline Herself” (“Garsington Manor” Historic England).

June 16, 1915 was the first party she hosted at Garsington, “a housewarming to coincide with her forty-second birthday” (Darroch 159). D.H. Lawrence and Frieda and Bertrand Russell were among the first guests to visit Garsington, after much begging on his part.

 

Lawrence and Garsington

For D. H. Lawrence, Garsington Manor was a refuge, but also a location of critique. He was a frequent visitor to Garsington, and “on one visit he helped Ottoline plant iris bulbs around the pond. He also built a small summerhouse for the garden,” (Darroch 164). Garsington could be the location for the Utopian society he wanted to build (Darroch 159).

 

Lawrence wrote a prose poem about Garsington Manor, which he sent to Lady Ottoline:

Shafted, looped windows between the without and within, the old house, the perfect old intervention of fitted stone, fitted perfectly about a silent soul, the soul that in drowning under this last wave of time looks out clear through the shafted windows to see the dawn of all dawns taking place, the England of all recollection rousing into being… It is me, generations and generations me, every complex, gleaming fibre of me, every lucis panf of my coming into being, And oh, my God, I cannot bear it. For it is not this me who am drowning under this last wave of time, this bursten flood.” (qtd. in Worthen 165)

As Lawrence and Bertrand Russell struck up an interest in philosophy together, and they planned some lectures, and he wanted to return to Garsington, seeing it as a philosophical refuge. In a letter to Lady Ottoline, he wrote.

We must have some meetings at Garsington. Garsington must be the retreat where we come together and knit ourselves together. Garsington is wonderful for that. It is like the Boccaccio place where they told all the Decameron. That wonderful lawn, under the ilex trees, with the old house and its exquisite old front– it is so remote, so perfectly a small world to itself, where one can get away from the temporal things to consider the big things.” (qtd. in Morrell 62).

Parties at Garsington

Garsington Manor served as the site for many large parties hosted by Lady Ottoline. Christmas 1915 was her biggest party since she moved in in 1915, as Darroch describes:

She [Ottoline] invited her biggest party yet, and almost every bedroom was full. There was Clive Bell, Lytton, Keynes, the philosopher George Santayana, Middleton Murry, Lord Henry Bentinck, Vanessa Bell and two of her Children, plus Marjorie and James Strachey. Ottoline was determined to make this Christmas the brightest and best ever and the entertainments uncluded games of backgammon, a charade entitled Life and Death of Lytton, and a large tree hung with gifts. The crowning event was a party in the large barn for the villagers and their children.” (Darroch 166)

Lady Ottoline also hosted a party at Easter, and she invited Roger Fry, key member of the Bloomsbury set. He allegedly enjoyed himself during his stay at Garsington (Darroch 173). According to Darroch, “At Easter, life at Garsington began to quicken– so much so that the house

that summer seemed at times more like a popular guesthouse than a private home” (Darroch 173).

Many of the Garsington parties featured entertainment that “took the form of elaborate charades and dancing, using her [Lady Ottoline’s] collection of exotic materials to dress up” (Kincaid-Weekes qtd. in Norris 190). When Lawrence attended parties at Garsington, “In the evenings at Garsington Lawrence read poetry by the fire and told stories about his early life. Once he decided they would all act in a version of Othello he adapted for the occasion” (Darroch 164).

Garsington During the War

During World War I, Garsington Manor served as a

haven for those politically opposed to the war. Lady Ottoline Morrell, in her memoirs, wrote about the purpose she wanted Garsington to have during the war:

Philip and I were hoping to make a centre at Garsington for those who were still under control of reason, who saw the War as it really was, not through false emotional madness, and the intoxication of war fever. We hoped that they would at least mean and think and talk freely, and realize that there were other values in life.” (84).

Siegfried Sassoon, upon being invalided home from the front, was brought to Garsington, where he enjoyed himself immensely, returning in 1918 (Seymour). Sassoon wrote about his experience there in 1915:

Here I sat, in this perfect bedroom with its old mullioned windows looking across the green forecourt… Garsington was just about the pleasantest house house I had ever stayed in– so pleasant that it wouldn’t be safe to think about it when I was back at the front.” (qtd. in Seymour)

Lady Ottoline notes that “with the exception of Lytton, most of them [those staying at Garsington during the war] were all young, full of vitality and indignation against the war” (49). Many of the Bloomsbury Group, like Clive Bell, were invited, and stayed at Garsington, farming the land during the course of the war (“Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, England”). Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, and David “Bunny” Garnett were among the famous pacifist faces that stayed at Garsington periodically throughout the war period (Morrell 50-52).

By 1916, Garsington Manor was a safe haven for those who wanted to avoid prosecution for being conscientious objectors (“Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, England”). Lady Ottoline Morrell describes a situation where a journalist attempted to write a story about the conscientious objectors:

the other Conscientious Objectors were naturally unpopular in the village and it was hard work to protect them… Then there was a visit from a representative of the Daily Sketch or Daily Mirror, who intended to write an article exposing these ‘slackers’ and ‘bogus’ farm workers. Philip had to placate him and show him that it was a genuine farm and that the men did genuine work, and indeed by threatening a libel action if he wrote about it.” (Morrell 126)

Lady Ottoline praised Philip greatly for his handling of the conscientious objectors, noting that he even looked into the views of people interested in coming to Garsington, to ensure that they were really Conscientious Objectors (Morrell 127).

Garsington’s Impact on Literature

D.H. Lawrence was inspired by Garsington Manor, and it influenced the party scenes in Women in Love, according to Margot Norris. Aldous Huxley allegedly made Garsington the setting for Chrome Yellow (1921) (“Garsington Manor” Historic England).

Garsington Manor Beyond the Modernists

In 1928, Garsington Manor was sold to Dr. Heaton of Christ Church, Oxford (“Garsington Manor” Historic England). Garsington was sold again in 1954 to the brother of Mrs. Heaton, Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, founder of St. Anthony College at Oxford. In 1981, it was sold to Leonard Ingrams and his wife.

Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind founded the Garsington Opera in 1989. In 2011, the Garsington opera was moved to Wormsley Estate when Leonard Ingrams passed away (“History”).

Garsington in Lady Ottoline’s Own Words

In her memoirs, Lady Ottoline wrote the following description of Garsington Manor:

Sometimes I felt as if Garsington was a theatre, where week after week a travelling company would arrive and play their parts. The old grey Jacobean house with magnolia and roses climbing on it stood like a square casket, enamelled inside with reds and greed and greys and gold. On the one side of the forecourt enclosed by stone gates and dark walls of yew, as high as the house. On the other the garden with cypresses and a great ilex tree and the formal flower garden like a coloured, sweet-smelling carpet. And below the terraces, the monastic fish ponds, surrounded by Italian statues standing against yew hedges, and green paths where the peacocks trailed their long tails, or unfolded them with amorous vibratings.
It was indeed a ravishing decor, recalling to one a Watteau or a Fragonard, a Mozart opera, and Italian villa, a Shakespeare play or any of the lovely worlds that poetic art has created. But the company that entered each week-end were a queer, strange, rather ragged company. How much they felt and saw of the beauty of the setting I never knew. Not very much perhaps, because there are few who are sensitive to beauty until it is established and written about…
Certainly it was a romantic theatre where week after week a new company would arrive, unpack, shake out their frills and improvise a new scene in life. For three days the play would last. Philip and I raised the curtain, Fate prompted the players, and the new players came and went and came again. When they arrived they left behind them work and conventions and their commonplace surroundings and entered a strange new region, where fresh influences made them often oblivious of the ordinary world and perhaps stimulated them to give vent to hidden impulses.” (Morrell 255-256).

Works Cited

Darroch, Sandra Jobson. Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell.Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1975.

“Garsington Manor.” Historic England. Historic England, 1987. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001095. Accessed 1 May 2018.

“Garsington Manor.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Project, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garsington_Manor. Accessed 1 May 2018.

“Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, England” Geni, Geni.com, n.d. https://www.geni.com/projects/Garsington-Manor-Oxfordshire-England/25409. Accessed 2 May 2018.

“History.” Garsington Opera, Olamalu, n.d. http://www.garsingtonopera.org/gallery/history. Accessed 1 May 2018.

Morrell, Lady Ottoline. Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell 1915-1918, edited by Robert Gathorne-Hardy. Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.

Norris, Margot. “The Party In Extremis in D.R. Lawrence’s Women in Love.” The Modernist Party, edited by Kate McLoughlin, Edinburgh Press, 2013, pp. 178-191.

Seymour, Miranda. “Why Garsington Manor was Britain’s Most Scandalous Wartime Retreat.” The Guardian, The Guardian News and Media Limited, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/25/why-garsington-manor-britains-scandalous-retreat. Accessed 2 May 2018.

Worthen, John. D.H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider. Counterpoint, 2005.