Netherwood: Pictures, Persons and Places
Assembled by Rodney Davies

Aleister Crowley, the notorious occultist and practitioner of sex magick, was in his dotage offered a room at Netherwood, a large guest house situated on The Ridge in Hastings. Crowley titled himself the Great Beast or, in Latinized Greek, Mega Therion (after the seven-headed, ten-horned beast in the Book of Revelations), and adopted its number of 666.

Netherwood was owned and run by Vernon and Kathleen (or ‘Johnny’) Symonds, and the Great Beast became their guest during the autumn of 1945. He opted for room 13, which was entirely apt as the great beast of Revelations is first mentioned and described in chapter 13 of that work. Crowley died there from pneumonia on Monday, 1 December 1947.

Aleister Crowley’s last landlady: Mrs Kathleen Symonds,
then widowed and retired, seated outside her home in
the summer of 1975 (Photo Davies).

Aleister Crowley, who was born on 12 October 1875, celebrated his 70th birthday soon after he moved into Netherwood. His health was by then not very strong and was made worse by his addiction to heroin, which meant he had neither the energy, nor indeed the opportunity, to participate in many magical experiments.

Yet ‘Johnny’ Symonds did recall hearing about one incident at Netherwood which seemingly had involved occult forces.

‘Kenneth Grant and I went for a bus ride around Hastings once when he visited,’ she said, ‘and he told me all about Crowley and all the things that he’d learned from him. He said Crowley had told him he could call up the elements. He was then staying in the cottage in the grounds, and Crowley said “If you come, I’ll show you”. And Crowley had a board, and on it were a piece of metal, a piece of stone, and other different things. I don’t know what happened but Crowley said, “I’ll call up the elements”, and he called up the wind. And it blew right through the cottage and banged all the doors!’

Postcard picture of the south-east facing rear aspect of
Netherwood. Crowley’s room is marked by the single
uppermost window surrounded by ivy on the right.

Map showing Netherwood and its grounds. The postcard photographer snapped his picture from the site
occupied by the second 4 of the wooded acreage area 2.443. The Ridge runs past the northern boundary.

The map below shows several of the mansions whose grounds once abutted The Ridge, standing to the south of it. They are, from Park Road on the right, St Helen’s Lodge, then Ripon Lodge, Netherwood, Oakhurst, and The Firs. Lying due north of The Firs (and also adjacent to The Ridge) was a big house named Riposo, which played an important part in Crowley’s life at Hastings, as the property included the Health Hydro he regularly attended.

The Health Hydro and the associated Naturist Reserve, which Crowley regularly visited, ostensibly because he liked the atmosphere, were run for many years by Mrs Pitcairn-Knowles along with her husband and son, both of whom were osteopaths. Crowley was often seen, a strange figure in a Norfolk suit, wandering along The Ridge, stopping now and then to lean against a lamppost and hold up the palms of his hands to the sun.‘Johnny’ once gave a birthday party for her son Clive, to which Mrs Pitcairn-Knowles and her son were invited. For his birthday present, Clive Symonds asked that Crowley should also be invited to the party. He came wearing a turban studded with jewels and a jade-green robe with a sash into which was stuck a jewelled dagger. What most impressed them all were the several rings he wore, which bore huge lumps of turquoise. Crowley behaved perfectly normally, said Mrs Pitcairn-Knowles, playing games with the children, and they all enjoyed themselves very much.
A Mr Watson, who used to run The Ridge Stores, was companion-nurse to Crowley. (These latter reminiscences were told to my aunt Peggy by Mrs Pitcairn-Knowles.)

Below is shown Augustus John’s 1945 sketch of Aleister Crowley, which was drawn not long before he went to live at Netherwood.

RIP

Click and read my article The Last Days of Aleister Crowley at Hastings