Time is running out to save the Sussex cottage where William Blake wrote of the dark satanic mills and green and pleasant land of England in his most famous poem Jerusalem, with the Blake Society still more than £400,000 short of the total required to buy the house for public use.
The society has been trying since September to raise the £520,000 needed to allow the cottage where Blake lived between 1800 and 1803 to be turned into a “home for artists, authors [and] thinkers”. But as the deadline of 28 November approaches, the society has raised just £93,000.
The West Sussex cottage is one of only two surviving buildings in which Blake lived, and is where he wrote both Jerusalem and much of his epic poem, Milton. For Philip Pullman, longstanding Blake enthusiast and president of the society, the appearance of the cottage on the market for the first time in 90 years is an opportunity not to be missed.
“Surely it isn’t beyond the resources of a nation that can spend enormous amounts of money on acts of folly and unnecessary warfare, a nation that likes to boast about its literary heritage, to find the money to pay for a proper memorial and a centre for the study of this great poet and artist,” Pullman said. “Not least because this is the place where he wrote the words now often sung as an alternative (and better) national anthem, the poem known as Jerusalem: ‘And did those feet in ancient time’. Blake’s feet walked in Felpham. Let’s not let this opportunity pass by.”
The cottage campaign, which would see the building made into a public centre celebrating Blake and welcoming visitors, poets and artists to continue his legacy, is also supported by authors and celebrities including Andrew Motion, Stephen Fry, Tracy Chevalier, Russell Brand, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. If the full amount is not raised, Blake Society chair Tim Heath says the organisation is working on a contingency plan to use the £93,000 raised so far to leverage a loan mortgaged on the cottage to complete the purchase.
“The amount we have raised represents 18% of the option price of £520,000, so we still need more donations to be sure of securing such a loan. To this end, we are hoping that a couple of philanthropists who have expressed interest will step forward, and we are also asking for text donations to celebrate Blake’s 257th birthday,” said Heath. “The purpose of the loan will be to buy us time to go down the traditional route of applying to major grant-giving trusts which can typically take a year or more. We are confident that, given the time, we can raise the moneys required – because it is as difficult to give away money as to raise it, and Blake represents a prestigious and safe project for major trusts.”
Blake lived in nine houses during his lifetime. The two that survive are a Georgian townhouse in London, and the Felpham cottage where he confronted a soldier in 1803 – earning him a summons after the soldier swore before a magistrate that the poet had said “Damn the King” and uttered seditious words. Blake was acquitted after a trial.
Blake loved the village, writing in a poem: “Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there / The ladder of Angels descends through the air.”
