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Charleston Farmhouse Photographs of the exterior of Charleston Farmhouse taken 29th March 2009, the sunday before it opens to the public from April to November. I wanted to photograph it then to show what it is like without the visitors: a beautiful little part of East Sussex where over 90 years ago the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved into and called home. Well, their country home at any rate. In the years that followed it would become an intregal part of the Bloomsbury Group legend and thereby become the honey that attracts soooo many bees in its open season. But on this sunday afternoon one could almost see the ghosts of the artists, of Virginia Woolf visiting her sister Vanessa for Sunday tea and a gossip on who was sleeping with who, or Dora Carrington (Art of Book Review, Movie Dvd Review) killing time, sitting quietly in the gardens on her first visit in 1916 while waiting for Lytton Strachey to come outside. Without the ker-ching of the cash register from the expensive shop, or the talking heads from the marquee when the Charleston Festival is on (the cackle from the women surrounding the guest speakers like Jeremy Paxman when he cracks jokes like 'anyone got the time?' is deafening), one can fully appreciate the simple beauty of the place. Tucked down a long road off the A27 a few miles from Lewes, the farmhouse is a lonely building set in gentle countryside. Sweet loneliness by design if you get what I mean for I wouldn't have thought that Duncan Grant would have felt anything that wasn't attached to a pretty colour. I returned on the 15th April to take some more photos on a hot spring day. Also took photos of Virginia Woolf's nearby home, Monks House. A review of the tour of the house can be found here. More on the Bloomsbury Group and the individual artists can be found here . Hover over each thumbnail image for details on picture and click on each to open a bigger picture. Most of these photos are available as signed prints. Please e-mail for details. I'd be grateful if the photos are not used without prior permission. Please e-mail any request for usage or to obtain any photo without the copyright wording. Any commercial usage will incur a small fee. Charleston Farmhouse furniture @ ebay.co.uk (direct link to furniture) |
