This map plots the settings and references in Cold Comfort Farm
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Sussex Farm - Credit:
Margaret Anne Clarke
Sussex - Credit:
Hogweard, Wikimedia Commons
Cold Comfort Farm is set primarily in Sussex. An English county on the South Coast, Sussex borders Surrey, Kent and Hampshire.
One of the most important physical features of Sussex is the area of chalkland known as the South Downs, extending from Hampshire in the West to Beachy Head in East Sussex. The Starkadders' farm is located on the "Downs".
The area was also home to artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and in the 1920s and 1930s their charmingly eccentric house, Charleston, became the country retreat for the Bloomsbury Group, including writers E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf.
View of the South Downs in Sussex - Credit:
Les Chatfield, Wikimedia Commons
North end of the Causeway, Horsham - Credit:
Colin Smith, Wikimedia Commons
The towns and villages within easy reach of Cold Comfort Farm, namely Howling, Beershorn, and Godmere, are fictional. But there are references to real places: Flora Poste worries that Elfine might go 'all arty-and-crafty' and 'keep a tea-room in Brighton' and Elfine herself declares that if she fails to marry Richard Hawk-Monitor, she could always 'get a job in an arts and crafts shop in Horsham'.
The Brighton Pavilion - Credit:
Paul Ashwin, Wikimedia Commons
Brighton is a large coastal town situated close to the border between East and West Sussex; Horsham is a small town about 18 miles to the north-west of Brighton. Assuming these towns are relatively close to Cold Comfort Farm, we have some idea of its imagined location.
London Borough of Lambeth - Credit:
en:User: Morwen, Wikimedia Commons
Before Flora Poste heads to Sussex to stay with the Starkadders, she spends some time with Mrs. Smiling at her house in Lambeth in London. There are references to them going to the cinema in Westminster, and to Mrs. Smiling going in search of a brassière in the 'slums of Mayfair'; the 'tide of fashion' (in residential living) is moving away from Mayfair to the 'other side of the river' (i.e. to Lambeth).
Stella Gibbons is having some fun with her futuristic London: in reality, Mayfair has always been a wealthy area beloved by embassies and exclusive members' clubs, while Lambeth, for much of its history, was an area of great deprivation.
Lambeth Bridge over the Thames - Credit:
Elliott Brown, Wikimedia Commons
LAMBETH lies south of the River Thames, and is home to Waterloo Station, the Oval cricket ground and the South Bank's Royal Festival Hall and National Theatre. Lambeth Palace is the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The borough is now considerably more prosperous than at the time of Gibbons' writing.
Lambeth is referred to in the song The Lambeth Walk from the 1937 musical, Me and My Girl. The Lambeth Walk is also the name of a Cockney dance which became popular in 1937.
Old Bond Street, Mayfair, London W.1 - Credit:
Michel wal, Wikimedia Commons
MAYFAIR lies north of the Thames, within the City of Westminster. It is one of the smartest and most expensive parts of London, home to many exclusive shops and up-market hotels, such as Claridge's and The Dorchester.
For many, Mayfair has been immortalised as the most expensive property in the board-game, Monopoly.
Bloomsbury is an area in Central London, and Charlotte Steet is a Fitzrovia street not far from Bloomsbury. Fitzrovia had a reputation as a favourite haunt of bohemian-types, whilst Bloomsbury was made famous by the 'Bloomsbury group', a set of intellectuals and artists whose members included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Vita Sackville-West, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.
These very wife-swappers may have been carrying on their shocking antics just over the hill from Cold Comfort Farm, in their Sussex retreat of Charleston.
'Lions' in this context means 'celebrities'.
Stella Gibbons satirises what she describes as 'Neo-Expressionist' drama.
Neo-expressionism currently exists as a term to describe a movement in the fields of painting and sculpture, but this only emerged in the 1970s. Gibbons was ahead of her time here, coining the futuristic term to represent a development of the Expressionist movement, an early 20th century cultural movement in poetry, art, music and drama.
Expressionism placed particular emphasis on expressing emotions and the concept of 'being alive', a feature of the movement which is suggested by the name of Gibbons' imaginary play. It was particularly popular in Berlin in the 1920s, which might account for the unlikely German name (Brandt Slurb) of the imaginary playwright.
Seven Dials is home to several theatres in London's West End. "Stench Street", unsurprisingly, does not exist.
The London Hippodrome - Credit:
Paul Hermans, Wikimedia Commons
The London Hippodrome is a real theatre, built in 1900. Stella Gibbons clearly didn't think much of its structural integrity, if a New Hippodrome was to come into being in 'the near future'.
Hippodrome (lit. "horse stadium) was a common name for theatres and music-halls throughout Britain.
Both Dan Langham and his show appear to be imaginary, but Stella Gibbons may be basing them on performers and productions of the time. She was well-informed about theatre, opera and musical shows, having written theatre reviews for the Lady magazine. Her husband, Allan Bourne Webb (who died in 1959), was an actor and singer, who often appeared on the London stage.
This comment gives us the best clue as to how far into the future the events of the story are set.
Stella Gibbons may have come up with the Anglo-Nicaraguan wars because Nicaragua (the largest nation in Central America) was going through a turbulent phase in its political history at the time Cold Comfort Farm was written: the country had been under American occupation since 1912, and would gain its independence in 1933.
Selfridges - one of the Oxford Street department stores still in existence - Credit:
Martin Addison
Marshall & Snelgrove's was a chain of department stores. Their first branch opened on Oxford Street, London in 1851.
The Oxford Street branch was bought by Debenhams and Freebody (later Debenhams) in 1919.
A White Sale is a sale of household linen, such as sheets and towels.