Charleston, in East Sussex, is a property associated with the Bloomsbury group, that is open to the public. It was the country home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and is an example of their decorative style within a domestic context, representing the fruition of more than sixty years of artistic creativity. In addition to the house and artists' garden, there is an exhibition gallery that displays a mix of contemporary and historical shows of fine and decorative art, a Crafts Council-selected shop selling applied art and books relating to Bloomsbury, a small tea-room and a video presentation. Charleston hosts a number of special events throughout the year, most notably the Charleston Festival, which is centred on talks and drama relating to literary, artistic and Bloomsbury themes. The house is located in the village of Firle, in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England.
History
In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household when Grant, under the terms of his exemption from military service, was employed at a nearby farm together with David Garnett. Over the following half-century Charleston became the country meeting place for the group of artists, writers and intellectuals known as Bloomsbury. Garnett, Clive Bell and Maynard Keynes lived at Charleston for considerable periods; Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were frequent visitors. Inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists, the artists decorated the walls, doors and furniture at Charleston. The walled garden was redesigned in a style reminiscent of southern Europe, with mosaics, box hedges, gravel pathways and ponds, but with a touch of Bloomsbury humour in the placing of the statuary.
"It's most lovely, very solid and simple, with... perfectly flat windows and wonderful tiled roofs. The pond is most beautiful, with a willow at one side and a stone or flint wall edging it all round the garden part, and a little lawn sloping down to it, with formal bushes on it." — Vanessa Bell
Charleston's walled garden was created by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant to designs by Roger Fry. Together they transformed vegetable plots and hen runs, essential to the household during the First World War, into a quintessential planted garden mixing Mediterranean influences with cottage garden planting. In the 1920s a grid of gravel paths gave structure to beds of plants chosen by Grant and Bell for their intense colour and silver foliage. These became the subject of many still lifes over their long residence at Charleston. Dora Carrington wrote of the garden, "Never, never have I seen quite such a wonderful place!... What excellent things there will be to paint in that garden with the pond and buildings." Part of the garden’s sense of luxuriance and surprise comes from the variety of sculpture it contains. Classical forms sit side by side with life-size works by Quentin Bell, mosaic pavements and tile edged pools. The orchard offers shade from the sun and the pond a focus for tranquil contemplation. Above all this was a summer garden for playing and painting, an enchanted retreat from London life. As Vanessa Bell wrote in 1936: "The house seems full of young people in very high spirits, laughing a great deal at their own jokes... lying about in the garden which is simply a dithering blaze of flowers and butterflies and apples."
Charleston Trust
The Charleston Trust is a charity set up in 1980 to restore and maintain the home of the Bloomsbury Group artists for the benefit of the public. The unique collection at Charleston is illustrative of the art and lifestyle of the influential Bloomsbury Group and has been on show to the public since 1986. Charleston attracts visitors from the local community as well as the rest of the UK and abroad. Today although Charleston is no longer in crisis, its future is far from secure. The Charleston Trust does not have the funds to guarantee the preservation of the house for future generations and relies on its income from admissions, sales from the shop and tea room, membership fees from the Friends of Charleston and grants from various bodies and donations.
