Elizabeth Goudge's Garden
... at Rose Cottage, Oxfordshire
“The cottage itself it is so strong that the moment the front door is opened to a guest I can feel the delight that rises up from its hospitable old heart. I once entertained thirty writers in our sitting room and even above the noise of the thirty all talking at once I imagined I was aware of the contented cat-like purring of the cottage. It liked it. This cottage knows in its wisdom how much human beings need each other.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, p 255
Note: This is a repost of Part 4 of my Oxford Authors’ Gardens series on my gardening Substack, Julie Witmer Gardens. I also wrote about the Oxford gardens of Flora Thompson, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. For the last visit, we travel south from Tolkien’s town garden in Oxford into the green woods of Oxfordshire to find the quiet home ofElizabeth Goudge, author of The Dean’s Watch, The Scent of Water, The Little White Horse, and many others.
Location: Rose Cottage, Dog Lane, Peppard Common (west of Henley-on-Thames) Oxfordshire
“In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Rosemary Tree
Arriving at Rose Cottage
A green leafy tunnel brings you down from Oxford town along winding ways to a small dirt road. This ancient road passes an abandoned 17th century inn, and leads to the town of Henley-on-Thames where the great river begins its end.
“I shall live and die here. Perhaps I shall never be well but this place will give me periods of respite that I would not have found in any other, and though I am able to do nothing else in this life, except only seek… what I seek is the goodness of God that waters the dry places.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Solace & shelter
Dog Lane is an appropriate name for this alley which leads to the last home of a shy, sensitive old lady named Elizabeth who found great solace in her canine friends. After a lifetime of hardship - years spent sleeplessly listening to the drone of German bombers, scraping along on rations of food, paper and fuel, and writing novels while shivering in the winter cold - Elizabeth found a true shelter in the home and garden of Rose Cottage.
“The spring will come with celandines and white violets in the lanes, and then the late spring with bluebells and campion and the wistaria coming out. And I shall learn the spring by heart, and then the summer, and I'll learn the bells and birdsong by heart, and the way the moonlight moves on the wall and the sun lies on the floor. I'll grow older and lose my beauty but the spring will not grow old nor the moon nor the snow.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Plants at Rose Cottage
Rose Cottage had its beginnings during the reign of Charles I, and so too did its garden. “Apothecary and Rosamundi, Maiden’s Blush and Moss roses” all grew there on Elizabeth’s arrival, as well as apples, plums, and very old primroses.
While Elizabeth lived at Rose Cottage, she and Jessie her housekeeper planted all manner of shrubby things, as well as the classic herbs that the garden would have held in its long history, such as rosemary and lavender.
“The place is now very green, shady and bird-haunted with climbing roses and clematis trained to grow up the old trees.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, p 293
Quietness and insight
It was while living in the shelter of Rose Cottage that Elizabeth was finally free of the stammer that meant ruin many years ago to her teenage ambition to be an actress. Living in Rose Cottage gave her the peace and quiet to write three of her greatest novels - The Dean’s Watch, The Scent of Water and The White Witch - as well as: a luminous biography of her beloved St Francis; a popular children’s book, Linnets & Valerians; four devotional anthologies; and her memoir.
“What is it that makes one place more than another home to one? Not length of stay. I think it is compatibility… The unseen spirit of a place has its deep desire and if it's the same as yours then your small desire goes down like an anchor into the depths.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Peace in a garden
Elizabeth was acutely sensitive to her surroundings, which is one reason her fiction is so full of life and insight. But she was also prone to debilitating anxiety, and the quiet country setting of Rose Cottage enabled her to live and work in peace.
“An old house that's come alive through the centuries is not just a shelter from the weather, it's a living thing... I could feel the life of this house as soon as I came through the door in the garden wall.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Visiting by Rose Cottage
When you drive to Dog Lane, leave your car at the old inn turned Italian restaurant. Soak in the June bird song, and the shifting light through the high leafy canopy.
Crunch your way down the gravel lane until you are stopped by the sight of roses clambering over a centuries-old house and scrambling up to every window. Gaze at the white mare in the pasture, contentedly enjoying her fresh summer meal. Sparrows sit resting on the housetop. In the hush, you will sense with Elizabeth that this is a place touched by eternity.
“I have a dear picture in my mind of the Hawthorn tree white with blossom and the old horse standing beneath it knee-deep in buttercups… hares dancing near the tree.”
Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, p 298
More on Goudge’s books and home:
The Blue Plaque ceremony in April 2008
Interior photos from the listing for Rose Cottage in 2020
Henley-on-Thames local news article on the sale of Rose Cottage in 2020
Primrose Cottage next door, once the home of poet Anne Lewis-Smith
Have you been to Rose Cottage, or any of Elizabeth Goudge’s cathedral cities? Love to hear!
Links for the Oxfordian Author Gardens Series on JWG:
Introduction at Oxford Botanic Garden
Part 1: Flora Thompson’s Childhood Garden
Part 2: C.S. Lewis’ Garden at the Kilns
Part 3: J.R.R. Tolkien's Oxford Garden
*Amazon Affiliate links are included in this newsletter. I make a few cents per recommendation, each of which I hope will be helpful to you! Note: I also include many links which are not affiliates to other sites for research and photo credit purposes.
This is so lovely! I feel like I visited Rose Cottage in my heart through your photographs and descriptions, and I hope to one day visit it in person! Thank you so much for sharing!
So lovely. How wonderful that you were able to linger in her garden. Love the Scent of Water quotes.