1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham on the Sussex Downs immobilized by nervous exhaustion
and creative block. 1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career Sylvia Townsend Warner
spots a modest workman's cottage for sale on the Dorset coast. 1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles
in a Berkshire village seeking a lovers' retreat a refuge from war and a means of becoming
'a writer again'. Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women each of whom
moved to the country and was forever changed by it. We encounter them at quiet moments -
pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill jotting down a recipe or digging for potatoes
dirt beneath their nails. Slowly we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new
landscapes and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes they emerge from long
periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment they embark on new experiments in
form in feeling and in living. In the country each woman finds her path: to convalescence and
recovery to sexual and political awakening and above all to personal freedom and creative
flourishing. Graceful fluid and enriched by previously untouched archival material Rural
Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers and a passionate
invitation to us all: to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places and
find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day.
