Rottingdean History 2 go back
Rudyard Kipling
RUDYARD KIPLING was born in Bombay on December 30th 1865, son of John Lockwood Kipling, an artist and teacher of architectural sculpture, and his wife Alice. His mother was one of the talented and beautiful Macdonald sisters, four of whom married remarkable men, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Poynter, Alfred Baldwin, and John Lockwood Kipling himself..A quarrel with Rudyard's brother-in-law drove the Kiplings back to England in 1896, and the following year they moved to Rottingdean in Sussex, the county which he adopted as his own. Their son John was born in North End House, the holiday home of Rudyard's aunt, Georgiana Burne-Jones, and soon they moved into The Elms.By now Kipling had come to be regarded as the People's Laureate and the poet of Empire, and he produced some of his most memorable poems and stories in Rottingdean, including Kim, Stalky & Co., and Just So Stories.
The Grange
At the Museum of the Rottingdean Preservation Society, at The Grange in Rottingdean, there is a now a Kipling Room, with a reconstruction of his study in The Elms, and exhibits devoted to his work. The Grange is open daily, and there is no admission charge. When the house came back on the market during the 1980's, it was proposed that a large part of the garden be sold off for a housing development - fortunately this idea was quashed! The Rottingdean Preservation Society bought the land and transformed it from an overgrown wilderness into the beautiful Kipling Gardens which has various sections within its generous two acres for members of the public to enjoy.
