[Vwoolf] Peacehaven

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

During the 1970s my parents lived in Seaford, just 11 km from 
Peacehaven. They hated Peacehaven because it had a huge caravan site on 
it, full of fixed caravans, which they felt was a blot on the landscape. 
The caravans were not quite what Americans call mobile homes because 
they were not intended to be mobile, although as they could be moved 
they enjoyed (perhaps still do) some tax benefit. I have some dim memory 
that if you moved them once a year you didn't have to pay local tax 
(rates), but Mr Google could not confirm this.

Clara Jones's informative article "Virginia Woolf and 'The Villa Jones' 
(1931)" (WOOLF STUDIES ANNUAL Volume 22, 2016), has a footnote that 
mentions Peacehaven, refers to an unpublished letter of Woolf's, and 
discusses the class symbolism of buildings such as the villa in Woolf's 
work. I think that an element of class snobbery entered into my parents' 
disapproval of the Peacehaven caravan park, which they presumed 
(correctly?) would have a lower-class clientele, but they were right 
that it was (is?) an eyesore.

In 1987, during the great storm, the site suffered major damage; photos 
of the devastation resemble those were are used to seeing from the 
southern US states, but not from the UK.

Jeremy H

On 08.02.2021 11:55, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf wrote:
> As well as VW, it’s worth reading LW describing a walk on 4? August 
> 1914 and discussing Peacehaven in “Beginning Again”, pp. 146-8.  For 
> those who don’t have the 5-vol. edn, good luck finding this in any 
> other edn!  Nothing in the index to help.  Finding something you half 
> remember in his auto is often a challenge.  Take something like “any 
> sensible man must be a feminist” – try finding that again.
> Stuart
> (Day 328)

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