In a small neighborhood in Headington, about 3 miles from Oxford center, is the beloved home of C.S. Lewis. The Kilns was built in 1922 on the site of a former brickworks and behind the house is a small pond that is a flooded clay pit.
The Kilns was purchased in 1930 by C.S. Lewis, his brother Warnie, and Mrs Janie Moore. Lewis himself wrote of “The Kilns”, “I never hoped for the like”, and Warnie described it thus: “The house … stands at the entrance to its own grounds at the northern foot of Shotover Park at the end of a narrow lane, which in turn opens off a very bad and little used road [now Kiln Lane], giving as great privacy as can reasonably be looked for near a large town.”
The Kilns then stood in an eight-acre garden on Kiln Lane, alone in the countryside on the outskirts of the parish of Headington Quarry. Risinghurst did not exist then and, over time, the neighborhood has gorwn up all around the house, with the Lewis Close cul-de-sac built in 1968.
The extensive wild grounds to the south of the house (comprising a pond and a wooded hill) provided the inspiration for the Chronicles of Narnia, which started off as a tale told to children evacuated to the Kilns from London in 1939. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was published nine years later in 1948.
In 1969 BBONT (the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire Naturalists’ Trust, now renamed the Wildlife Trust) was given the pond and woodland behind the Kilns by Dora Stephens, in memory of her husband Henry and they’ve named the park the C.S. Lewis Nature Reserve.
The California-based C.S. Lewis Foundation bought The Kilns itself in the 1980s for £130,000 and has restored it to its original 1930s appearance. Group tours of the interior of the house can be arranged in advance by contacting thekilns@cslewis.org.
For more information:
http://www.cslewis.org/ourprograms/thekilns/kilnstour/
Directions on how to get the Kilns from Oxford: https://goo.gl/maps/bEhyY
