Cynthia Asquith moved to Bath in 1946, to Claverton Lodge on Bathwick Hill, ‘the most lovely house and best situated I have ever seen… the night view down on to the lights of Bath far below is a Dream of Beauty.’ Although she sold the house four years later, she is buried next to her husband Beb in the Smallcombe Cemetery below the garden (grave HM51). Cynthia Asquith was of course the author of the extraordinary Diaries 1915-18 and wrote memorably in November 1918 ‘I am beginning to rub my eyes at the prospect of peace. I think it will require more courage than anything that has gone before … One will have to look at long vistas again, instead of short ones, and one will at last fully recognise that the dead are not only dead for the duration of the war.’ These words inspired Helen Dunmore to write ‘The Duration’ here in 2013. (Cynthia Asquith seems to be very under-represented on the web and will be the subject of the Post next week.)
7 December 2018