SYNOPSIS
The daughter of a self-made man and managing director in the textile trade, Vera Pragnell (1896-1968) inherited a considerable fortune when her father and her elder brother died during the First World War. Religiously devout, she was alienated by the moral conditions placed upon support to the poor that she encountered during social work in the East End. Vera responded by buying land near Storrington in Sussex and in 1923 setting up a Christian socialist community with no barriers to entry.
Nikki Caxton explores the antecedents to this back-to-the land movement in the nineteenth century including the influence of the art critic and social prophet John Ruskin. Vera dedicated her book about The Sanctuary to the utopian socialist Edward Carpenter and she married his former lover, Edward Dennis Earle. Other associates were Victor Neuberg, a one-time intimate of the occultist, Aleister Crowley, and Roy Armstrong, the later founder of the Weald and Downland Living Museum.
The episode explores the life of the community and the challenges faced by Vera Pragnell in inspiring others to realise her vision.
GUESTS
Having previously worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Nikki Caxton joined Horsham Museum and Art Gallery in 2021 and is now its Curator. The Museum covers Horsham town and its surrounding districts and Nikki regularly lectures on subjects of historic interest.
Nikki’s interest in the Storrington Sanctuary was piqued by finding several books from Victor Neuberg’s Vine Press in the Horsham Museum Collection.
Nikki’s interview with Simon Machin was recorded at Horsham Museum on 6 October 2026.