C.S. Lewis’s home near Oxford, where he lived with Joy Davidman, was called The Kilns.
The Kilns was a house in Headington Quarry, east of Oxford. Lewis bought the property with his brother Warren in 1930, and it became Lewis’s principal home for the rest of his life. The house took its name from nearby lime kilns associated with the local quarrying industry.
Lewis lived at The Kilns with Warren and, during the final years of his life, with Joy Davidman. The surrounding woodland and pond contributed to the private atmosphere of the property. Lewis’s friend Roger Lancelyn Green and other visitors also spent time there.
The Kilns is sometimes confused with Little Lea, the Belfast house where Lewis spent part of his childhood. The names belong to different stages of his life and different countries. The Kilns remains associated with Lewis’s Oxford years, his writing, and the marriage to Davidman.