Top Ten Beautiful Writing Huts
We all love their houses, we all crave their studies, and we drool over their libraries; and now we’re collating the top ten writer’s huts that we’ve all drooled over thus far. I think we probably all agree on the favourite, but let us know which one you would like in your garden (or clifftop or lake!).
#1 — Roald Dahl
This stunning little hut has by far struck the biggest chord with our Prosers on Twitter. Nestled in the garden of his home in the Buckinghamshire village, where he lived and wrote for 36 years, it is now a museum that can be visited by everyone as long as they believe in magic. Why? Because: “those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”.
#2 — Henry Williamson
A stunning and cosy little number, this writing hut in Oxford Cross, Devon and was built by Henry Williamson in 1929 from the proceeds of Tarka the Otter, and he went on to write more than 50 novels in this simple yet characterful writing sanctuary. It is now listed as protected and rightly so.
#3 — Mark Twain
“It is the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lighting flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head — imagine the luxury of it.” — Mark Twain, in a letter to William Dean Howells, 1874
#4 — John Steinbeck
Not so much a hut, as a writing cabin. ‘I bought a small house and garden in Pacific Grove…’ (John Steinbeck: A Life in Letters). American author John Steinbeck wrote these words to a friend about this charming house he called home in the 1940s and now you can now stay there via AirBnB and write your classic novels! See you there.
#5 — Michael Pollan
A Place Of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams is about how Pollan built this writing hut in the woods behind his house. He writes, “Is there anybody who hasn’t at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn’t turned those soft words over until they’d assumed a habitable shape? What they propose, to anyone who admits them into the space of a daydream, is a place of solitude a few steps off the beaten track of everyday life.”
#6 — Ronald Duncan
Not far from the gnarly hut of Robert Stephen Hawker stands this stone-built work hut of the writer and man of letters, Ronald Duncan. It’s been beautifully restored by some members of his family, and stands directly by the South West Coast Path on the border of Devon and Cornwall.
#7 — Robert Stephen Hawker
A hut that is a gnarled and battered little beautiful place. We bet this has seen some interesting stuff! Hawker’s Hut is at Morwenstow, Cornwall and was built by the eccentric clergyman and poet himself.
#8 — Virginia Woolf
This pretty little writing shed lies in the garden of her rural retreat in Rodmell, Sussex, which she used from 1919 onwards. We think you’ll agree it looks ideal to lose days reading and writing inside.
#9 — George Bernard Shaw
This rotating hut is still at Shaw’s Corner, which was the primary residence of the renowned Irish playwright. It is located in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, in Hertfordshire and is open to the public.
#10 — Dylan Thomas
This writing hut is arguably the prettiest, or at least has the best view. Actually a boating house that he described as “my word-splashed hut”. It is situated in Laugharne, Wales and is also open to the public.
Hope you enjoyed this ‘best of so far’ collection of writing huts. Do let us know what your favourite was and if there are any that we have yet to feature.
There will be plenty more of these, libraries, shelfies, writer’s studies and houses to follow.
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Originally published at blog.theprose.com on April 2, 2016.
