Sussex's Hidden Gem: Charleston House
I've wanted to visit Charleston House for a while, so my daughter's university project on the Bloomsbury Group was the perfect opportunity to visit Vanessa Bell's home. My dad lent us a beautiful book, "Charleston, a Bloomsbury House and Garden" by Quentin Bell and Virginia Nicholson, and I've got completely enthralled not only in creativity on display in the house but also the people and their complicated lives and loves. I've had to scale back this blog, it had turned into a long essay, as there was so much I wanted to share with you!
Quentin Bell was Vanessa Bell's son but unfortunately he died before the book was finished so it was completed by his daughter (Vanessa Bell's granddaughter) Virginia Nicholson.
A hidden treasure, Charleston House is in East Sussex, not too far from Lewes. It also has wonderful gardens filled with fruit trees, a pond and vegetable beds but for me the real wonder were the painted rooms, furniture, paintings and artifacts and what they revealed about its past inhabitants.
It was Vanessa Bell's sister, Virginia Woolf, who first found Charleston. In 1916 Vanessa Bell and her lover and friend Duncan Grant moved there permanently with Duncan's parter David Garnet (known as Bunny Garnet) and Vanessa's two sons, Julian and Quentin, from her marriage to Clive Bell, and her daughter Angelica. Angelica's father was later to be revealed to be Duncan Grant and, in a twist, years later Angelia ended up marrying her father's former lover Bunny.
Charleston was a place to escape conventionality and WW1 compulsory conscription. Duncan and David took up farming to avoid being forced to join the armed forces. Charleston became a meeting place for artists, writers and intellectuals, including Virginia Woolf, T S Elliot, E M Forster and John Maynard Keynes.
The Bloomsbury Group would meet at Charleston and paint and decorate together. They painted every surface they could from doors, to shutters to bedheads. Everywhere you look there is a feast for the eyes and even now it is so visually energising. I think this quote from Virginia Nicholson sums it up wonderfully:
"Above all Charleston was a place for both children and adults where creativity was a way of life. My brother, sister and I, grew up as did Quentin and his siblings with a conviction that art was something everyone could do. Paint, clay, mud, glue and matches were always available. There was an wonderfully uninhibited quality to the decoration of the house, which is that of a child let loose to experiment, and which is extraordinarily liberating. Part of the exhilaration people experience when looking at the colourful designs that crowd the Charleston walls and furniture comes from the sense of confidence and fearlessness. The Charleston artists do not deal with caution."
Clive Bell's Study
The study is the centre of the house and where Vanessa first took her brush and started to transport Charleston into a post impressionist world. It began as a family living room but in the incredibly cold winter of 1916 Roger Fry designed the big fireplace. The family would gather around the big fireplace for tea with marrow and ginger jam. It's also the room in which Quentin and Julian were taught by their governess.
The fabrics were designed by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and the amazing door panels were painted by Duncan on different dates as the original bottom door panels were damaged by the boys. The room became Clive's study in 1939.
The Dining Room
Known for its rich decoration, geometric stencilling, and notable furniture the dining room at Charleston house is my favourite room. The round dining table in the centre of the room is stencilled and, as the pattern wore out, Vanessa added more layers of design.
The house was leased and Duncan and Vanessa would use what ever paint was easily accessible and affordable at the time. Quentin shared that decorations to the house were always rapidly carried out with very little preparation.
What I love most about the room are the inky dark walls with their geometric stencilled pattern. Duncan handmade the large paper stencils for the walls in 1939 when war instructions were being issued.
The Kitchen
The kitchen is one of the only rooms that hasn't changed function at Charleston however, the original larder was transformed into what's now Vanessa's bedroom.
The groceries were delivered by horse drawn van from a grocers in Firle. They kept hens, bees and grew their own vegetables.
They employed a cook, who later became a housekeeper, to allow more time to be with the children and for painting. Grace Higgins worked for the family for over 50 years from the age of 15.
The Garden Room
Apparently the garden room wasn't used often, however Vanessa would sit there in the evening. My favourite thing in the room is the fringed radiator cover, which was made because Vanessa didn't like the look of the radiator.
The mural of two nudes on a mirror replaced the mirror which broke when an oil lamp was left too close. Duncan decorated the log box, and the fish rug was also designed by Duncan in the 1920's.
Vanessa Bell's Bedroom
The room has remained unaltered since Vanessa died there. The bed is from Heals and covered in an embroidered Turkish bedspread. The curtain was designed by Vanessa for the Omega Workshop, which was later reproduced by Laura Ashley in 1986.
"I am sitting at my open bedroom window... it opens down to the ground and I look out on to the lawn which was been extended up to the terrace - Quentin's idea for making our garden a second Versailles. The monthly roses are in bloom. It's a hot summer evening.. the pinks are making the whole place smell..." Vanessa to Janie Bussy, 6 June 1940.
The Studio
Built in 1925, the studio was based on a design by Roger Fry. Vanessa and Duncan originally shared this space until Vanessa transformed an attic room into her studio leaving Duncan to have the studio as his own. Duncan enjoyed using the studio for small, private theatricals and loved to entertain whereas Vanessa was more private. Duncan and Vanessa had a deep respect for each other's work and both were very dedicated to their art.
The Charleston studio is packed full of incredible things and I could spend hours in there. It's painted dark to act as a backdrop for paintings.
Duncan also struggled with selling his work. Quentin explained: "He used to go round and mark the back of his canvases with 200. Then when somebody came as a serious purchaser he'd look at the back of th epicture and see 200 and then would somehow feel it was impertinent to ask so much so he'd say, 'Oh, well, no, no, I don't know, how about 150? Well that's a bit too much, say 100, well 50, 25 perhaps?"
Maynard Keyne's Room
Economist John Maynard Keynes was a great friend of Duncan and Vanessa's and a former lover of Duncan's. He was a frequent visitor to Charleston and even had his own room. Maynard use to buy paintings for the National Gallery - he couldn't persuade the gallery director to buy a Cezanne, so he bought it himself.
Vanessa wrote to Roger Fry, 1918:
"We had great excitements about the pictures, Maynard came back suddenly and unexpectedly late at night, having been dropped at the bottom of the lane... and said he had left a Cezanne by the roadside! Duncan rushed off to get it.. and it's most exciting to have it in the house."
My favourite thing in this room were the hand-painted box files. It made me think everyone should paint their box files!
Duncan Grant's Bedroom
What makes Duncan's bedroom stand out is its plain white walls which make the other colours in the room stand out more. Vanessa designed Duncan's room and it's interesting that Duncan had a dressing room as he was always considered very casual.
The Spare Room
Originally one of the boy's nurseries but now called the spare room. A special thing about this room is that you can step onto the flat roof through the window. The room was made into a guest room in the 1920s. The furniture is a mismatch, like the rest of the house and the etherial dancing nymph painted onto the cupboard is a collaboration between Vanessa and daughter Angelica.
Green Bathroom
Originally known as the green room. When the Charleston's (as they are sometimes known) first arrived, there was only cold water in the bathroom and it stayed that way until hot water was introduced at the end of the first world war.
Garden
The Charleston garden is divided into two parts: the front garden with the large pond and the walled garden at the back of the house. The pond was once even larger, and deeper than it is now. The beautiful walled garden was desolate on their arrival but over the years they cultivated it. Friend and architect Roger Fry helped reconstruct the garden, enclosing a rectangular lawn surrounded by a herbaceous border.