The Kilns, also known as C. S. Lewis House, is the house in

Risinghurst Risinghurst is an outlying residential area of Oxford, England, just outside the Eastern Bypass Road which forms part of the Oxford ring road. It is about east of the centre of Headington and east of Oxford city centre. It is part of the Risin ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, England, where the author

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

wrote all of his Narnia books and other classics. The house itself was featured in the Narnia books.
Lewis's gardener at The Kilns,

Fred Paxford Frederick William Calcut Paxford (5 August 1898, Fifield, Oxfordshire – 10 August 1979, Churchill, Oxfordshire) was C. S. Lewis's gardener and handyman at The Kilns from 1930 until Lewis's death in 1963. He is said to have been the inspiration ...

, is said to have inspired the character of

Puddleglum Puddleglum is a fictional character in the children's fantasy series ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' by C. S. Lewis. Puddleglum appears as a principal character in ''The Silver Chair'', and is mentioned briefly at the end of '' The Last Battle''. Pud ...

the Marshwiggle in ''

The Silver Chair ''The Silver Chair'' is a children's fantasy novel by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1953. It was the fourth published of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956); it is volume six in recent editions, which are seq ...

''.

Walter Hooper Walter McGehee Hooper (March 27, 1931December 7, 2020) was an American writer and literary advisor of the estate of C.S. Lewis. He was a literary trustee for Owen Barfield from December 1997 to October 2006. Life Hooper was born in Reidsville, No ...

, ''Past Watchful Dragons: the Narnian Chronicles of C. S. Lewis'', 1979 ) The Kilns, study, 1997

The Kilns was built in 1922 on the site of a former

brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a quarry for cl ...

. The lake in the garden is a flooded

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement. Quarries where clay is mined to make bricks are sometimes called brick pits. A brickyard or brickworks is ...

. In 1930, The Kilns was bought by C. S. Lewis, his brother

Warren Lewis Warren Hamilton Lewis (16 June 1895 – 9 April 1973) was a British historian and officer in the British Army, best known as the elder brother of writer and professor C. S. Lewis. Warren Lewis was a supply officer with the Royal Army Service Co ...

, and Janie Moore.

Maureen Dunbar Dame Maureen "Daisy" Helen Dunbar, 8th Baronetess, or more commonly known as Dame Maureen Dunbar (née Moore; 19 August 1906 – 14 February 1997), was the only daughter of Courtenay Edward Moore (1870–1951) and Janie King Moore (née Askins) (18 ...

, Janie Moore's daughter, also lived there. C. S. Lewis wrote of the house: "I never hoped for the like". Janie Moore was the mother of Lewis's university friend Paddy Moore, who had been killed in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The house is located in what is now called Lewis Close, south of Kiln Lane. The Kilns is currently owned and operated by the C.S. Lewis Foundation, which runs it as the Study Centre at the Kilns.

References

External links

*
C.S. Lewis Study Centre at the Kilns
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kilns, The Houses completed in 1922 Buildings and structures in Oxford Culture in Oxford C. S. Lewis