Drawing You, Heavy With Sleep: Celebrating Sylvia Townsend Warner

Date:   Saturday, 27th September 2025

Venue: Shire Hall Museum

Time:   2pm

Price:   £10.00

Join the Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society , Mark Damon Chutter, to discuss the life and work of the musicologist and LGBTQ + pioneer Sylvia Townsend Warner(1893-1978).

Mark will explore and read from her literary fiction such as ‘ Lolly Willowes ‘(1926)  and from the poetry such as ‘ Drawing  You, Heavy With Sleep ‘ which mirrors her love and deep devotion to her partner Valentine Ackland.

There will also be readings from her diaries which connect her to Dorchester first living at East Chaldon within a mini- Bloomsbury and bohemian group of writers and artists and then later at Frome Vauchurch in Maiden Newton.

There is a new statue of Sylvia planned for Dorchester to be unveiled in December 2025 which Mark will also discuss with further information.

Advance booking required

To book Email info@shirehalldorset.org or or phone  01305 261849

BOOK DIRECT WITH SHIRE HALL MUSEUM

STW by Howard Coster, half-plate film negative, 1934 © National Portrait Gallery

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