Charleston Book

Set in the heart of the Sussex downs, Charleston Farmhouse is the most important remaining example of Bloomsbury decorative style. When painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Vanessa's two children and Duncan's friend David Garnett moved there in 1916, they took on an old building and overgrown garden ripe for transformation. Undaunted by the lack of creature comforts, Duncan and Vanessa set about obliterating the awful wallpaper they found with paint and stencils and decorating the furniture they bought in junk shops. The result was a series of unique interiors that formed a backdrop for decades of Bloomsbury artistic and literary activity, which only drew to a close with Duncan's death in 1978. Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden celebrates the artistic talents, wit and originality of those who lived at Charleston. Quentin Bell, the younger son of Clive and Vanessa Bell, and his daughter Virginia Nicholson tell the story of this unique house, linking it with some of the leading cultural figures who were invited as guests. Frequent visitors included Vanessa's sister, Virginia Woolf, who lived only four miles away; the writer Lytton Strachey; the economist Maynard Keynes, who stayed so long he had a room permanently set aside for him; and the art critic Roger Fry, who designed the curious fireplaces and a new studio. The house and garden are portrayed through Alen MacWeeney's atmospheric photographs, featuring entire rooms, specific decorative details, paintings and sculptures. Pictures from Vanessa's family album convey the flavor of the household in its heyday, while some of the many canvases painted there attest to the importance of Charleston as a source of inspiration.