Notable Residents
The writer Virginia Woolf visited nearby Lewes in December 1910 and decided to relocate in Firle, where she rented a house and renamed it Little Talland House. Pointz Hall, a fictional manor from her novel Between the Acts, is believed to be inspired by Firle Place. Woolf's sister, painter and interior designer Vanessa Bell, moved to Firle in 1916 taking residence with her live-in lover Duncan Grant in Charleston Farmhouse, which subsequently became a regular haunt of the Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa Bell, her son Quentin Bell, and Duncan Grant are all buried in the churchyard of St Peter's, Firle.
The Welsh Actor Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn who famously starred in 17 James Bond films as the character Q ("Major Geoffrey Boothroyd" ) was a resident of Firle when he died in 1999.
Writer Katherine Mansfield, who had close ties with the Bloomsbury Group, also lived in Firle for a brief time. Her landlord was economist John Maynard Keynes, who moved to Firle in 1925 and died there in 1946. Keynes was cremated and his ashes scattered above the downs of nearby Tilton.
British General Thomas Gage was born in Firle.
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