Monk's House NT

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Monk's House NT

The 17th century country home of Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard. The Woolfs bought Monk's House for the 'shape and fertlity and wildness of the garden'.

Nestled in the heart of rural Sussex, Monk’s House is a tranquil 17th-century weatherboarded cottage inhabited by Leonard and the novelist Virginia Woolf from 1919 until Leonards death in 1969. Get to know Leonard and Virginia Woolf and the wider Bloomsbury Group by visiting Monk's House. Full of their favourite things, the house appears as if they just stepped out for a walk. Today, the lovely cottage garden contains a mix of flowers, vegetables, orchards, lawns and ponds.

30/05/2026

Happy Birthday Vanessa Bell! 💐

Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell were both founding members of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of writers and artists who challenged what they considered to be outmoded Victorian conventions of creative endeavour.

Today we remember her artistic legacy and her impact on Virginia’s work and life. 💕

📷Julian Bell and Vanessa Bell by unknown photographer (1910) Vintage snapshot print, NPG x136462 © National Portrait Gallery, London.
📷Vanessa Bell by Ray Strachey (August 1914) Film negative, NPG x88543 © National Portrait Gallery, London.
🎨Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell (circa 1912) Oil on panel, © Monk’s House, National Trust.

10/05/2026

Wisteria hysteria is here! 💜

Monk’s House garden is soaking up all the sunshine and rainbows this time of year 🌞

“Never has the garden been so lovely… dazzling one’s eyes with reds and pinks and purples and mauves” - Virginia Woolf, quoted in Penelope Lively’s ‘Life in the Garden’.

©️National Trust images / Hannah Isbister 2026

virginiawoolf

02/05/2026

Capture the beauty of spring with an immersive botanical painting workshop, surrounded by the Monk’s House garden! What could be better?! 🌸

Under the expert guidance of acclaimed artist Vicky Mappin, you’ll master the delicate techniques of botanical illustration while surrounded by the very blooms that inspired Virginia Woolf’s writing. 🌿🌱🍃

Beginning with careful observation and precision drawing, you’ll progress to painting techniques, learning to layer washes and build lifelike colour. Under Vicky’s mentorship, you’ll discover how to translate the intricate life of the garden onto the page with clarity and vibrancy. 🌷

Book your spot via the link in our bio - places are limited! 💌

🎨All art featured is by Vicky Mappin

Tea, coffee and light refreshments will be provided, but please bring yourself a packed lunch as there are no onsite catering facilities, nor shops in the village. All painting materials will be provided. The house is closed on Wednesdays but you will have exclusive access to the garden where the workshop will take place (Should the weather be adverse to outside painting there will be indoor space available).

25/04/2026

Connect with your creativity and flow state in this mindful Suminagashi Japanese ink marbling workshop, set in the serene surroundings of the Monk’s House garden. 🌀

Arriving at Monk’s House you’ll have some time to enjoy the garden and a personalised visit to Virginia Woolf’s bedroom to see her handbound Shakespeare collection - binding these books was a mindful therapy for Virginia when experiencing headaches.

There will be a welcoming meditation led by Lisa in the peaceful surrounds of the garden, and a brief history of the origins and philosophy of Suminagashi. Lisa will then guide you through techniques, experimentation and play to make several monoprints. These decorative prints are a unique record of that moment in time and the creative variations are infinite. 🌿✨

Book via our website today - go to our link in bio and click ‘Workshops and Events’ 🌷

Workshop facilitator:

16/04/2026

Bookings now open for the second of our programmed workshops for 2026.
Virginia Woolf was a great patron of the Arts, we seek to continue that legacy …

Botanical Blossom Painting
Wednesday 20th May, 10am-4pm, Monk’s House, Rodmell, East Sussex.

Join us in the serene garden space of Monk’s House Garden for this full day Botanical painting workshop with seasoned botanical painter and watercolourist Vicky Mappin. The garden at Monk’s House was formed around the crumbled walls of old piggeries and the paths punctuated with millstones laid by Leonard Woolf. This garden has long been creative inspiration to all who visit and now there is the opportunity to spend the day here, on one of our closed days (so you’ll have the run of the garden!) Vicky, expert botanical painter and seasoned teacher, will take you through the fundamentals of botanical watercolour painting sharing specialist techniques and tips and then you will be able to spend time painting your chosen bloom/blooms ! This workshop is appropriate for all abilities, spaces limited.

Take time for yourself, try something new, or spend time doing something you love.
*We can’t guarantee the garden will look exactly like these photographs from May 2025, but we can guarantee something similar and a day well spent! (with )

Please see link in bio for further information and booking.
Further enquiries [email protected]

©Vicky Mappin 2026
© National Trust Images 2026 / Bec Garland

25/01/2026

Happy Birthday Virginia Woolf! 💌

Today, Virginia is remembered not only for her diaries, but also for her exceptional contribution to modernist literature, with numerous acclaimed novels and canonical feminist texts.

History and cake – what the National Trust does best!

📖 Virginia Woolf (1925) ‘Rambling Round Evelyn - The Common Reader’

📷 Photographs:
1) Virginia Woolf by Lady Ottoline Morrell, Vintage snapshot print, circa 1917, NPG Ax141319, © National Portrait Gallery, London.

2) Virginia Woolf by George Charles Beresford, platinum print, July 1902, NPG P221, © National Portrait Gallery, London.

3) © Virginia Woolf Monk's House Photograph Album. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

4) Virginia Woolf and Lord David Cecil by Lady Ottoline Morrell, Vintage snapshot print, June 1923, NPG Ax141310, © National Portrait Gallery, London.

🎂😍Cake:
Artist collab – Mr and Mrs Pritchard’s 😉interpretation of Vanessa Bell’s ‘The Common Reader’ book cover, Hogarth Press.

25/11/2025

Happy Birthday Leonard Woolf!

Leonard’s legacy, and many of his plants, live on today at Monk’s House. 🍃

📖 Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s letters and diary entries, featured in Caroline Zoob’s ‘Virginia Woolf’s Garden’ (2013)
📚Leonard Woolf (1966) ‘Downhill all the way: An Autobiography of the Years 1919-1939’

📷 © Virginia Woolf Monk's House Photograph Album. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

20/11/2025

Orlando’ is a novel that at the time of publication broke established rules of biography as it followed the unrealistically long and gender-shifting life of aspiring writer and aristocrat Orlando. Among its many themes are identity, what it means to be a woman and love.
We post it to represent our allyship with all people, celebrating inclusion and diversity and everyone’s right to be. In a world of seeming polarisation and divide, binary rights and wrongs …
“Anyone can be a barbarian; it takes terrible effort to remain a civilised man”. Leonard Woolf.
Let’s make effort, let’s support, let’s be kind humans.

📖 ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf

Address

Monk's House, The Street
Rodmell
BN73HF

Telephone

+441273474760

Website

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/monks-house, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/monks-house/events

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