Charleston: Past and Present

Charleston is the country house in Lewes, Sussex which was established as a family home by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. She was married to Clive Bell at the time and had children by both men, but this was how things were done in the Bloomsbury Group. They lived in the house for over fifty years, covering the walls and furniture with their paintings, designing ceramics and furniture, making rugs and wall hangings, cultivating the gardens - and generally forming what became a unique collection of domestic and interior design. The house also became the country retreat for many of the Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa raised her children Julian, Quentin and Angelica there, and she was visited by her sister Virginia Woolf, as well as by her ex-lover Roger Fry, and at weekends her husband Clive Bell and his lover Mary Hutchinson... Read more >>

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