The Real Manderley: A House of Secrets
Menabilly, the house in Cornwall that inspired two of Daphne du Maurier's novels
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
So opens Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier’s most famous and enduring novel. I read it as a high school sophomore, a girl who liked classics but not usually the ones my teachers chose. This one was different, from that evocative opening line onwards. I was hooked, transported into the Gothic drama of the de Winters and the secrets their crumbling old house on the Cornish coast had witnessed.
Like many things in literature, the iconic Manderley is based on a real house — Menabilly, which du Maurier and her husband leased for twenty-six years. And, like many love affairs, it began with a romantic story of first meeting.
In this case, nineteen-year-old Daphne du Maurier, who had yet to publish a novel, was wandering around the woods on a visit to Foway, Cornwall in 1926 when she discovered an abandoned early Georgian manor house in the forest, at the end of a long and winding drive. It was covered in ivy, with broken windows and showing clear signs of being neglected and forgotten.
The house had its hold on young Daphne, winding its way through her mind over the next several years as she published her first four novels, married, and started a family. (As a side note, her husband was a fan of her work before they met.) And still, the old house wouldn’t let go. And while her husband, Tommy "Boy" Browning, was posted to Alexandria, Egypt, as Lieutenant Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, in the summer of 1937, she began work in earnest on the manuscript that would become Rebecca. It wasn’t her first attempt to tell the story of a jealous wife who goes digging for uncovered secrets, but the first manuscript was abandoned after 15,000 words and torn up by du Maurier, who described it as a “literary miscarriage” in her apology letter to her editor, explaining why she had nothing to show for her efforts.
In Egypt, too, she struggled to make much headway, apologizing again and writing to say that she doubted she would return to England in December with a completed manuscript as her editor had initially expected. But upon her return, she was able to shut out the world over the Christmas holidays and produce what would become her best-known work — a book that was born, in many ways, outside the dilapidated house in the Cornish woods.
Yes, the story of the fictional second wife who is haunted (metaphorically) by the memory of her predecessor is an invented one, but its roots can be found in the twisted vines of ivy at Menabilly.
Rebecca was released in 1938 to critical acclaim and shot its way up the bestseller lists, both in the UK and abroad. At its peak, 4000 copies of Rebecca were being sold in the United States every month and the novel has never been out of print.
And still, Daphne couldn’t stop thinking about the house. She hadn’t managed to write it out of her system and, in fact, it seemed to secure an even more steadfast grip on her imagination. In the early 1940s, she returned to the house again, this time bringing her three children on her trespassing adventure. The house was still in terrible shape, but she told her children it was her favorite place in all the world, kissed its walls, and vowed to return.
True to her nature as a writer, she tracked down its owners and history, eager to know the background of this place that she loved above all others.
The house was owned by the Rashleigh family, having been their family seat since the 16th century. The Rashleighs were merchants from Devon who gradually grew wealthier and more influential as time passed. Philip Rashleigh, a younger son of the family, moved to Cornwall in 1545 and his descendants purchased the land on which Menabilly was built from Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, in the 1560s, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The first house on the property was built in 1589 by John Rashleigh, who had just returned from captaining his ship Francis of Foy against the Spanish Armada the year before. He would later go on to become MP for Fowey in 1589 and 1597 and Sheriff of Cornwall from 1608–9 — and, many years later still, he would be mentioned in one of du Maurier’s books.
His son, Johnathan, would finish the building of the first house. He was elected to Parliament five times and was a Royalist during the English Civil War. The house was later rebuilt — though elements of the Tudor era structure remained — between 1710 and 1715 by Johnathan Rashleigh III.
The house and gardens were maintained by the generations of Rashleighs that came after, at least until the time of another John Rashleigh, who inherited the house in 1905 but rarely stayed there. In the intervening years, the house would fall into decay, waiting for Daphne du Maurier to discover it, write about it, and inquire into its past.
But knowing the house’s story wasn’t enough for Daphne. She got to know the owners and secured a 20-year lease on the house and restored it to its former glory, saving it from overgrowth and ruin with the help of a £250 grant from the Ministry of Works.
Menabilly was once again habitable just in time for Christmas 1943, when the Browning family took up residence. Although the ivy was trimmed back and the windows were fixed, the house was still infested with rats and the three children had to share one bedroom, as the rest were not yet usable.
Despite all that, the youngest of the Browning children later described growing up at Menabilly as “magical,” even though her mother kept to a strict schedule and didn’t socialize with other families in order to keep up with her demanding writing regime. Du Maurier often isolated herself even from her family and the estate staff, writing in a small hut she’d had built some distance from the house so that she could have peace and quiet to write. But she still found time to take her children on a daily walk and participate in their play and adventures in the woods around Menabilly. She would go on to write nine novels, two plays, and an assortment of short stories during her time at time there — and it wasn’t done inspiring her.
Rebecca wasn’t the only book to be inspired by Menabilly. In fact, the first novel that du Maurier wrote while living there features the house by name — and drew inspiration from an actual legend within the Rashleigh family. During 19th-century renovations, a secret chamber was found in the house, where they discovered a skeleton with boots that seemed to indicate he was a knight from the time of the English Civil War. Daphne heard the story around the time she moved in and wrote a novel entitled The King’s General around the Rashleigh family and their involvement in the war, including actual members of the family in the narrative, along with other real historical figures.
And yes, one of those real people is Sir Richard Grenville, the titular King’s General in the West. It’s a captivating story, weaving both truth and fiction into an unforgettable novel. And, surprisingly for its time, the viewpoint character is disabled, using a wheelchair after an accident left her without the use of her legs.
While Daphne du Maurier can be credited with having saved Menabilly from ruin, she never owned the house she poured her heart and soul into. Her husband passed away there in 1965. As Menabilly changed hands once again, the new owners wanted to occupy it, and du Maurier found herself at the end of her lease with no hope of renewal. She left the house that was so tied to her life and work in 1969.
Today, the Rashleigh baronets once again live in their family seat, saved and made famous by a legendary novelist and her dreams of Manderley.
Dive Deeper:
Fancy Pants Homes: Menabilly, the Real-Life Inspiration for the Manderley House in ‘Rebecca’
The Telegraph: An interview with du Maurier's daughter about growing up at Menabilly
YouTube: Interview with Daphne du Maurier and footage of her at Menabilly