Stella Gibbons unhappy childhood. After an indifferent school career she trained as a journalist, and worked as a reporter and features writer, mainly for the "Evening Standard" and "The Lady". Her first book, published in 1930, was a collection of poems which was well received, and through her life she considered herself primarily a poet rather than a novelist. After "Cold Comfort Farm", a satire on the genre of rural-themed "loam and lovechild" novels popular in the late 1920s, most of Gibbons's novels were based within the middle-class suburban world with which she was familiar. Gibbons became a Fellow of the Royal
Grinling Gibbons organ case of St Paul's Cathedral. Some of the finest Gibbons carvings accessible to the general public are those on display at the National Trust's Petworth House in West Sussex, UK. At Petworth the Carved Room is host to a fine and extensive display of intricate wooden carvings by Gibbons. His association with Deptford is commemorated locally: Grinling Gibbons Primary School is in Clyde Street, near the site of Sayes Court in Deptford. Most of present-day New Cross and Brockley wards were in 1978–1998 part of the Grinling Gibbons ward. His work can be seen in the London churches of