(1886-1947)
Flora was a novelist and poet, best known for her semi-autobiographical trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford centring on her childhood in English countryside and published as a collection in 1945. The books detail her early life in the village of Juniper Hill through to her first work in a sub-post office.
Self-taught and a largely self-educated, Flora began writing in 1911 when she won an essay competition about Jane Austen. From there she wrote articles and stories for women’s papers. In 1916 she moved with her husband to Liphook to run the Post Office and writing in the small box room where they lived next door. In 1921 her poetry book, Bog, Myrtle and Peat was published. I’m astounded there isn’t yet a folk group claiming that name.
In later years her husband’s work took them west, but her bust occupies space in the Liphook Library to commemorate her time living in the village from 1916 to 1928. Originally unveiled in 1981 outside the Post Office it was moved due to vandalism in the 1990’s to the library foyer where it remains today.
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