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Sylvia Plath: A life in photographs: 1960-1963

This is the last photograph gallery and includes places Plath lived, visited, and wrote about after her return to London in December 1959. In April 1960, Plath gave birth to a daughter, Frieda, at home. In 1961, she suffered an appendicitis and a miscarriage before channeling her creative efforts into her novel The Bell Jar. After this, Plath's creative writing escalated to such a degree that by October 1962, she was writing poems that would make her famous. By the Autumn of 1961, Plath and Hughes purchased Court Green, in North Tawton, Devon. Her son, Nicholas, was born in January 1962. Within the year her marriage collapsed and she moved back to London in early December 1962. The Bell Jar was published in January 1963, and within a month, she took her life. Sylvia Plath is buried in Heptonstall, in Yorkshire, England.


Please contact me regarding use of the photographs on this website. No photographs may be used without my consent.


chalcot
Reference:
Plath and Hughes lived here from 1960 through August 1961.

chalcot1
Reference:
After it was recently painted but before the blue plaque.

3_chalcot
Reference:
With the blue plaque in place.

chalcot2
Reference:
One of the lovely squares in the Primrose Hill neighborhood of London.

primrose4
Reference:
A street just off Chalcot Square.

primrose1
Reference:
The Faber paperback of Winter Trees uses a similar view on its cover.

primrose_hill
Reference:
A lovely park with views of London from the top.

york_minster
Reference:
Plath signed the contract for Heinemann edition of The Colossus here on 10 February 1960.

Now called the French House.

st_georges_terr
Reference:
Dido and W.S. Merwin lived on this street.

11_st_georges
Reference:
Plath drafted most of The Bell Jar here in the spring of 1961.

11_st_georges_Close
Reference:
Plath used the Merwin's study which was on one of the upper floors.

parliament_hill
Reference:
See Plath's poem "Parliament Hill Fields".

berck-plage
Reference:
See Plath's poem "Berck-Plage", section 1, "This is the sea, then, this great abeyance."
Photo courtesy of Gail Crowther.

concrete_berck
Reference:
See Plath's poem "Berck-Plage", section 2, "Behind the concrete bunkers / Two lovers unstick themselves."
Photo courtesy of Gail Crowther.

berck_bunkers
Reference:
See Plath's poem "Berck-Plage."
Photo courtesy of Gail Crowther.

perfect
Reference:
See Hughes's poem "Perfect Light" in Birthday Letters.

nt1
Reference:
Court Green is up the street and to the right.

nt2
Reference:
Leading toward the River Taw.

nt3
Reference:
Leading toward Essington Road and Court Green.

nt4
References:
Plath attended some services and set part of her story "Mothers" here.

yew_tree
Reference:
The Yew Tree in St. Peter's Churchyard.
Photo courtesy of Gail Crowther.

headstones
Reference:
See Plath's poem "The Moon and the Yew Tree".

nt5
Reference:
Court Green is on the right.

nt6
Reference:
Rose and Percy Key lived here. See Plath's Journals and poem "Berck-Plage".

private
Reference:
This gate is built against the wall separating Court Green from the cemetery.

Plath refers to this wall as "the wall of old corpses" in her poem "Letter in November".

nt7
Reference:
The thatched cottage of Court Green.

property1
Reference:
Notice the clusters of daffodil stalks and the apple trees.

apple
Reference:
One of the apple trees.

bee_meeting
Reference:
The approximate location of Plath's poem "The Bee Meeting". See also her Journals, pages 656-9.

town_centre
Reference:
See Plath's The Journals, Appendix 15, page 633.

sheep
Reference:
Plath rode horses near here.

cleggan_pier
References:
Plath & Hughes stayed near here with Richard Murphy in September 1962.

cleggan_harbour
Reference:
Plath & Hughes set off from here with Richard Murphy to visit the island of Inishbofin.

cleggan_disaster
Reference:
The subject of a Richard Murphy poem Plath judged in 1962 for the Guinness award at the Cheltenham Festival.

cleggan_road
Reference:
An unpaved road is one of two ways to the Old Forge.

old_forge
Reference:
Plath & Hughes stayed here.

cleggan_old_forge
Reference:
A quiet cul-de-sac in a quiet town.

coole_park
Reference:
Plath and Hughes visited Coole Park in September 1962.

autographs
Reference:
Did Hughes add his initials to the tree? A "TH" is visible diagonally up to the right from the number 8?

thoor
Reference:
Nearby to the town of Gort is Thoor Ballylee.

albion_house
Reference:
On 30 October 1962, Plath read her poems and was interviewed here by Peter Orr of the British Council.

fitroy1
Reference:
The row houses on Fitzroy Road. The blue plaque for W.B. Yeats is visible.

23_fitzroy
Reference:
Plath lived here from December 1962 until her death on 11 February 1963.

fitzroy2
Reference:
The Irish poet and dramatist W.B. Yeats lived in this house as a boy.

fitzroy4
Reference:
The road ends at Primrose Hill.

mountfort
Reference:
The Becker's lived at No. 5. Plath stayed with them the last weekend of her life.

coroners_court
Reference:
The inquest into Plath's death was held here, Friday 15 February 1963.

footpath
Reference:
A footpath leads from Hebden Bridge to Heptonstall.

heptonstall1
Reference:
From the moor.

spgrave1
Reference:
I have much less hair now.

plathgrave1
Reference:
Are these tulips "too excitable"?

plath_grave
Reference:
Photograph taken on 11 February 2003.

new_cemetery
Reference:
Plath's grave is in this row.

neilson
Reference:
Home to the Sylvia Plath Collection.

plath_plaque
Reference:
Erected in 2000, the 50th anniversary of her high school graduation.

blue_plaque
Reference:
Take at the unveiling of Plath's Blue Plaque.

the_blue_plaque
Reference:
On her former home at 3 Chalcot Square.