St Ives Archive

St Ives Archive: Virginia Woolf’s ‘days of pure enjoyment’

“There were then days of pure enjoyment – I conceive them at St Ives most readily” – Virginia Woolf

The year before Virginia was born, her father Leslie Stephen bought the lease of Talland House, an Edwardian villa uphill from Porthminster Beach. In 1882, when she was a few months old, the Stephen family went on their first summer holiday to St Ives. It was a long way from London. As Virginia later described: “It was a windy, noisy, fishy, vociferous, narrow-streeted town; the colour of a mussel or a limpet; like a bunch of rough shellfish clustered on a grey wall together.” grapes, and Virginia and her siblings had multiple lookout points where they could watch ships cross the bay, the sea change colour, and the fishing fleets return at night. In the distance was the lighthouse, “a stark tower on a bare rock”, as Virginia described it in To The Lighthouse. The light was said to have beamed up to 17 miles away.

In Hyde Park Gate News, the Stephen children’s newspaper, Virginia reported on a boat trip to the lighthouse in September 1892: “On Saturday morning Master Hilary Hunt and Master Basil Smith came up to Talland House and asked Master Thoby and Miss Virginia Stephen to accompany them to the lighthouse, as Freeman the boatman said there was a perfect tide and wind for going there. Master Adrian Stephen was much disappointed at not being allowed to go.” Many years later, this memorable voyage was re-created in To The Lighthouse.

In 1895, after Julia’s sudden death, Leslie sold Talland House to painter Thomas Millie Dow, Virginia was 13. Although her family spent no more summers in St Ives, she and Vanessa returned many times as adults. Throughout her writing career, Virginia dipped her pen into the past, creatively reimagining the light, the sea, Talland House, the town, and that boat trip to Godrevy.

From her journeys on the Cornish Riviera Express, to the garden at Talland House, and Godrevy Lighthouse – immortalised in her novel To The Lighthouse – the experiences she had, and the places she discovered in St Ives, left a great impression on her life and writing.

With the construction of the branch line from St Erth in 1877, it was possible for Londoners to visit St Ives from Paddington Station. Leslie, his wife Julia, and their children Stella (from Julia’s first marriage), Vanessa, Thoby, Virginia and Adrian would stay at Talland House for up to three months a year.

“When they took Talland House, Father and Mother gave us – me, at any rate – what has been perennial, invaluable,” Virginia wrote in her memoir. The house, then part of Tregenna Castle Estate, looked out over St Ives Bay with views of the lighthouse and beyond. Leslie described the splendours of Talland House in a letter to a friend in July 1884: “We have gardens each full of romance for the children – lawns surrounded by flowering hedges, and intricate thickets of gooseberries and currants, and remote nooks of potatoes and peas, and high banks, altogether a pocket-paradise with a sheltered cove of sand in easy reach (for ‘Ginia even) just below.”

The garden had an orchard, kitchen garden, flowerbeds and large glasshouses filled with “Nothing that we had as children was quite so important to us as our summer in Cornwall”

Celeste Allen

St Ives Archive is based at Wesley Methodist Church, St Ives Road, Carbis Bay, St Ives, TR26 2SF. For information about current opening hours, phone 01736 796408, email admin@stivesarchive.org, or visit www.stivesarchive.org. The Archive opened in 1996 and is staffed by volunteers. We are always looking for people to join our enthusiastic team – there are opportunities to learn new skills, carry out research, assist visitors and take part in fundraising events. We offer a valuable service for anyone wishing to obtain historic information about the town, free of charge. The Archive holds over 35,000 photographs and numerous documents covering fascinating subjects such as art, maritime heritage, tourism and traditional customs, and we also have extensive resources relating to the history of St Ives families. Why not come and visit us?

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