Entrance to Scalands Gate. Watercolour and pencil on paper. 7 1/16 x 11 inches (17.9 x 27.9 cm). Collection of the Delaware Art Gallery, object no. 2017-24. Image courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum.
This watercolour sketch shows the elevated banks surmounted with trees surrounding the lane leading to Scalands Gate, the home Barbara built near Robertsbridge in Sussex, that she and her husband moved into in July 1863. Eugène Bodichon hated living in London and Barbara chose this location because the countryside was similar to that near their home in Algiers, the Campagne du Pavillon located on Mustapha Supérieure. Barbara had therefore leased three acres of land from her brother Ben on the Glottenham estate in order to build her cottage. She decided to build in Harding's Wood, close to Scalands Farm but nearer to the road, so she called the house Scalands Gate. In conversation, however, she generally referred to their house as "Dr. Bodichon's Cottage" (Hirsch 181-82). The house's design was modelled after an old Sussex manor and was furnished simply. She used one of the upstairs rooms as a studio. The house was only a ten-minute walk from Brown's, the house where Barbara had lived with her mother, and where her favourite Aunt Dolly spent the spring and summer months. The Bodichons felt very much at home there and it was here, in addition to her London home at 5 Blandford Square, that she entertained her large circle of friends. Although the Bodichons spent the winters in Algiers from November to April they, or Barbara alone, returned to Scalands Gate every May. She also lent her cottage to friends on occasion.
Bibliography
Entrance to Scalands Gate. Delaware Art Gallery. Web. 2 February 2025.
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Radical. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
Created 2 February 2025