Visiting Heptonstall to see Sylvia Plath's Grave

Today we (Gail Crowther, David Fitzwilliam, and I) visited Heptonstall to see the gravesite of Sylvia Plath. It was during a snowstorm; the winds were vicious and snow was blowing and drifting everywhere; it had to be seen to be believed, which is why I took some video. The village of Heptonstall was quite and we were the first to traipse to the grave. After visiting the grave, we walked up through the village and into Heptonstall Slack to see the Beacon, where the house was exposed to the full force and fury of the storm. The road at the bottom of the images (and video) was impassable from the snow drifts. Retiring after this exertion for a coffee at the Cross Inn was well earned to warm up before facing the rest of the day.

This was my fourth visit to see Plath's grave and the first since 2003, which was in February of that year but at that time the weather was crisp and fine. Today's weather made for quite a surreal experience in what has been an truly magical, mysterious, and adventurous Plath-filled week with previous stops in London and in several Devon locations, which included seeing Plath book author's Andrew Wilson and Robin Peel, as well as a much loved meeting with Elizabeth Sigmund in which I got to chat-Plath and see Plath's copy of the Collected Poems Dylan Thomas. I wanted to see Plath's grave especially in this year as it is the 50th anniversary of her death. The landscape of Yorkshire in 1963 might have looked similar to what I saw today as that was the year of "The Big Freeze" when much of the country was under snow and ice.

Here are some pictures of the grave of Sylvia Plath, the Beacon, and Heptonstall. In addition to these images, I have also posted two videos on Sylvia Plath Info Blog's YouTube channel.

Click here to see Plath's grave.

Click here to see the Beacon.

Towngate, Heptonstall

Heptonstall

Towngate, Heptonstall

Church Street, Heptonstall

The Beacon

Sylvia Plath's grave

Gail Crowther and PKS at Sylvia Plath's grave

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...

Some final photographs of Sylvia Plath

Susan O'Neill-Roe took a series of photographs of Sylvia Plath and her children from October to late November (or maybe early December) 1962 while she was a day nanny/mother's help at Court Green. From nearby Belstone , it was a short drive to North Tawton and the aid she provided enabled Plath to complete the masterful October and November poems and also to make day or overnight trips to London for poetry business and other business. Some of O'Neill-Roe's photographs are well-known. However, a cache of photographs formed a part of the papers of failed biographer Harriet Rosenstein. They were sold separately from the rest of her papers that went to Emory. I was fortunate enough to see low resolution scans of them a while back so please note these are being posted today as mere reference quality images. There are two series here. The first of the children with Plath dressed in red and black. (This should be referred to in the future, please, as Plath's Stendhal-c...

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de...

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