In April 1905, the Lewis family moves from Dundela Villas to a larger home called ‘Little Lea’, which Albert had built on the outskirts of Belfast, close to open farmland. His two sons, Warren and Clive, love the house with its long corridors, quiet rooms, and the attic as a place for them alone.
Shortly after moving to Little Lea, Warren goes to England to attend Wynyard School in Watford. Clive is being tutored at home by Mother Flora and a governess, Miss Annie Harper. Following in his parents’ footsteps, Clive becomes an avid reader. Reading is not just a delight to him, it is also a powerful and moving experience. But the most moving experiences transcends books. They are experiences of what C.S. Lewis later calls ‘Joy’. It’s a longing. It’s a foretaste of something to come, of what our world is meant to be.
Clive not only reads a lot, but he also begins writing. He starts writing a play, a history of a fantasyland, and a diary. With his brother Warren, he creates through drawings and stories an imaginary world they call ‘Boxen’. In 1985, Walter Hooper edits a collection of C.S. Lewis’s early stories, histories, and drawings under the title Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C.S. Lewis.
In February 1908, when Clive is 9 years old, Mother Flora is diagnosed with cancer. An operation is performed at home. For a short time she improves, but by June she is ill again. Mother Flora dies on 23 August 1908, Father Albert’s birthday.
In 1914, before leaving home for his last term at Malvern College, Clive finds a new friend, Arthur Greeves (1895–1966), who lives directly across the road from Little Lea. They discover a common delight in Norse mythology. Although they are both quite different, the boys become close friends and confidants, and a lifelong friendship and correspondence begins. Unfortunately, C.S. Lewis does not preserve many of Arthur’s letters, but Arthur keeps almost all of Lewis’s. In 1979, these letters are been published in They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves 1914–1963 (edited by Walter Hooper).
After Father Albert’s death on 25 September 1929, Warren and Clive sell Little Lea in June 1930. Now there is a plaque on the outside of the house in memory of C.S. Lewis.