(1893-1978)
High Street, Dorchester, England
Two weeks after what I classed as my last statue visit, another one gets unveiled. Showcased on 14th December 2025, I consider the 10-hour round trip to make the unveiling. I don’t make it, but Sylvia gets a visit in the new year still looking shiny and new.
Novelist, short story writer and poet, Sylvia’s first collection of poems appeared in 1925, with debut book (Lolly Willowes) published a year later. She went on to publish six more novels as well as writing contributions to the New Yorker for over forty years, translated Proust’s Contre Saint-Beuve into English, wrote a biography of the novelist T.H. White and a travel guide to Somerset. Phew. Despite all this, her work has gone largely unnoticed. Her style and subject matter was no doubt seen as rather avant-garde at the time. Her work was re-published in the 1970’s by Virago, helping her reach a wider and perhaps more liberal audience. The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society also helps to publicise and promote her work.
The statue bench is situated in Dorset town centre where Sylvia lived most of her life with her partner and poet Valentine Ackland. Some of their writing is included in the sculpture as well as musical scores as a nod to Sylvia’s early passion and work as a musicologist.
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