A place of their own

East Sussex, England Charleston Farm was the country home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and is an example of their decorative style, representing more than sixty years of artistic work.

I have been here before, but it was lovely to have the opportunity to revisit it. If you know the Bloomsbury Group, you know they were painters, potters, designers, and writers, as well as free thinkers and revolutionaries for their time. Other core members included Virgina Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and art critic Clive Bell. 

When the first world war was rearing its head, Duncan Bell and his lover registered as conscientious objecters, and signed on for alternative Work of National Importance on a farm.

The farm house they settled on was Charleston, in the Sussex countryside, and their close friends often visited them and worked there. (I will not go into detail on the relationships of all these people, but feel free to do some fascinating research on your own.)

It’s very easy to describe Charleston in real estate terms, but very difficult to describe it in terms of the feeling that was created there.

It hasn’t been tarted up or over-curated to give a museum feel. Rather, there is a sense that Vanessa has just left the dining room, or that Duncan is painting in the studio.

The home-made lamp shades, sitting on all kinds of odd posts, are completely charming, as are the chandeliers formed of what could pass as colanders.

The books were actually being read, and the paintings on the walls were fresh from the artists. The wallpapers were stenciled by hand and designed to highlight the artwork of the group. The bedrooms and cushy couches and chairs made you want to curl up and read or nap, and the overall effect spelled home.

The relationships were complex and sometimes messy, but this relic of a special time and place of great creativity remains absolutely a treasure.