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Charleston
Farmhouse. Firle,
Charleston, an 18th century farmhouse set close to the foot of the South Downs, is a memorial to the Bloomsbury Group. In 1916 Charleston became the home of the artist Vanessa Bell, her fellow artist (and sometime lover) Duncan Grant, the writer David Garnett, her two young sons and an assortment of animals. The two men were conscientious objectors and had come to do farm work. The unconventional and creative household became the focal point for the Bloomsbury Group of artists and intellectuals. Regular visitors to Charleston included the Woolfs, Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, T.S. Elliot, Desmond MacCarthy and E.M. Forster who were close friends. The house was found by Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard, who lived at nearby Asheham (the couple later to moved to Monks House in Rodmell, now owned by the National Trust). Virginia thought that Vanessa could make Charleston "absolutely divine". Conditions at the house were primitive with only basic plumbing and no gas or electricity. Nevertheless, the three adults gradually decorated the walls with murals and filled the house with their paintings, ceramics and painted furniture. Their work was influenced by Italian frescoe painting and post-Impressionist art and the unique ambiance they created is still obvious today.. Vanessa's husband, the writer Clive Bell, moved to Charleston in 1939 bringing more paintings, books and furniture. Vanessa and Clive Bell, Duncan Grant and their children lived at Charleston until their respective deaths. When Duncan Grant died in 1978 at the age of 93 the era came to an end. After his death the Charleston Trust was formed to save the house and restore it to its former glory. Its work has been described as, "one of the most difficult and imaginative feats of restoration current in Britain". Charleston contains a huge collection of paintings and lithographs including works by Grant, Bell, Roger Fry, Picasso, Derain, Walter Sickert, Nina Hamnett and Keith Baynes. The contents of the house, although accumulated over 50 years by several people, have an homogenous feel. Much of the furniture was decorated by Bell and Grant in the same style as their murals. There are also some good pieces of antique English furniture which were inherited by the Bells. |
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