CHARLESTON FARMHOUSE, A PHOTO ESSAY, PART ONE, EXTERIOR

 

CHARLESTON FARMHOUSE, 

SOME EXTERIOR VIEWS

 

"Nessa & Clive live, as I think, much like great ladies in a French salon; they have all the wits & the poets; & Nessa sits among them like a Goddess."

Virginia Woolf

"Charleston Farmhouse, in Sussex, which Vanessa began to rent in 1916 as a country retreat, and where she and Duncan and (sometimes) Clive lived together for extended periods, was restored in the 1980s and opened to the public."

(from Janet Malcom's essay, A House Of One's Own)

"A trust was formed, money was raised, and the place is now a museum, complete with a gift shop, teas, lectures, a twice-yearly magaine, and a summer-study program." 

J. Malcom

 

"Without the decorations, it is doubtful whether the house would have been preserved."

J. Malcolm

"Because of them, the legend of Bloomsbury has a site: readers of the novel of Bloomsbury need no longer imagine; they can now actually enter the rooms where some of the most dramatic scenes took place, can look out the windows the characters looked out of, can tread on the carpets they tread on and stroll the garden they strolled in."

J. Malcolm 

"It is as if Mansfield Park itself had been opened up to us as an accompaniment to our reading of the novel."

J. Malcolm

In her essay, A House Of One's Own, Janet Malcolm describes a visit on a "cold, gray day" in December and how she felt the house's "Chekovian beauty and sadness."

We visited in early summer, coping with rain showers, taking a public bus from the town of Lewes where we were staying for a few nights. The busses don't run that often and tend to fly along the motorway past the narrow road that leads to the farmhouse. A much easier visit if you have a car, but worth your time if you have any interest in Bloomsbury. 

As we were the only passengers on the bus, and it was a Saturday, the driver was quite accomodating and dropped us off at a public stop about half a mile on foot through farmland to the parking area and the house's entrance.