Escape to myself

Charleston Farmhouse was, from 1916, the hub and retreat of the Bloomsbury Group where artists Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant entertained a glittering array of artists and intellectuals: Roger Fry who championed Post Impressionism in the UK, Lytton Strachey, economist Maynard Keynes, E.M Forster, Dora Carrington and Vanessa’s sister Virginia Woolf in a talented and bohemian loose collective. Together they were influential in the arts, philosophy, literature and criticism until the 1930s. Virginia and Leonard Woolf founded the Hogarth Press and Vanessa the Omega Workshops.

The house is a time capsule of the aesthetic of the artists. Every surface if the house was decorated including furniture, ceramics and the fabric. It is quite exquisite and the rooms a gallery of Grant and Bell’s work.

The house also contains galleries exhibiting temporary collections work from different periods and media. Today there were two excellent exhibitions by Post-Impressionists from the Barber Institute and by a modern Japanese artist Izumi Kato. With the beautiful gardens, inspirational house and galleries this is a magical place.