Charleston Festival is back!

Charleston, the modernist home and studio of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant of the Bloomsbury group, is a special treasure here in our little corner of East Sussex. Never been before? There is no better time to visit than during their annual Festival which runs this year from 19-29 May. Combined with a stay at The Grain Store Lewes, what could be better? You may even bump into one of the guest speakers up at The Grain Store!

Positioned just off the A27, a 15-minute drive from The Grain Store Lewes, the house is hidden away at the end of a farm road; the weathered tiles of the unassuming 17th-century house rise up beyond the rambling farmhouse garden. There is something utterly magical about the atmosphere here that grips you with curiosity, you may never want to leave…

This year the 1 0-day festival brings together in person over 100 of today’s most exciting artists, writers and change-makers to engage with art and ideas in a thrilling programme of 42 live events. The speakers will explore topics ranging from books, poetry and writing, to fashion, film, science and politics.

Guests at this year’s festival include musician and activist Bob Geldof, actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Simon Callow and Sheila Hancock, journalist and podcast host Deborah Frances-White, writers Damon Galgut, Armistead Maupin, Sarah Moss, Jacqueline Wilson and Monique Roffey, scientist Jim Al-Khalili, lawyers Clive Stafford Smith and Lady Hale, journalist Emily Maitlis, fashion designers Kim Jones and Zandra Rhodes, and many more.

All events are held in a marquee within the grounds of Charleston. The house, garden, exhibition galleries and shop will be open every day from 10am, so you can really make a day of it.

Local Lewes favourite and Charleston partner Caccia & Tails will be open daily from 10am - 7:30pm throughout the festival, serving up their delicious Italian Street Food and drinks. You can also enjoy a special Charleston Festival picnic hamper to eat in their beautiful spring garden which will be in full bloom; a perfect place for relaxing in-between events.

Brighton and Hove’s City Books will be hosting their popular pop-up book shop, with book signings in the entrance marquee throughout the festival.

All in all, it’s a truly great day out, in a magically inspiring location.

A brief history of Charleston

For much of the early 20th century Charleston was a place of counter-cultural escapism for a cast of friends and lovers from London; artists, writers and intellectuals, famed members of the Bloomsbury Group such as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot, the economist John Maynard Keynes and the composer Benjamin Britten.

They all had one thing in common, the need to escape city life with its rigid views and imposing morals, to somewhere that would allow them the space to say and do things their own way.

The story begins back in 1916 when artist owners Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant moved to Charleston farmhouse along with Vanessa's sons, Julian & Quentin, and Duncan’s lover David ‘Bunny’ Garnett.

Duncan was drawn to Charleston because of his status as a conscientious objector during World War I, which granted him military exemption so long as he pursued agricultural work. Vanessa was leaving behind a platonic marriage to Clive Bell to embark on something far less conventional instead with Duncan, a man who entertained a string of homosexual lovers, but also gave her a child, Angelica. They had a deep connection that never stopped their entire lives.

Charleston played host to many intertwining liaisons over the years. To name a few, Roger Fry who was also a former lover of Vanessa’s, Duncan’s lover David Garnett, who was present at Angelica’s birth, and also went on to marry her, and Vanessa’s former husband, Clive, who remained close and came to live at Charleston in 1939. As Dorothy Parker’s famous remark goes, the Bloomsbury Group “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”.

The interiors of Charleston are truly a living work of art; from dreamily furnished rooms, frescoed door frames and fireplaces, to dancing figures and decorative flowers hand stencilled and painted on walls and surfaces throughout the space, there is barely a surface left untouched. But although Charleston is a beautiful home, it is also more than that – it is a testimony to an ideology as well as an aesthetic.

Most of the artwork in the house is that of Vanessa and Duncan, but there is plenty of work to be seen by other friends and family, like Roger Fry’s red lacquer dining room chairs and a bust of Virginia Wolf in the studio by sculptor Stephen Tomlin, it’s beauty is the result of a collective creativity that reflects an astounding group of friends and lovers, coming together to write their own shared history.

After the First World War ended, the residents of Charleston returned to their lives in London and Europe, but the family continued to spend their summers at the farmhouse for the next 20 years, entertaining an array of friends and visitors. When the Second World War began in 1939, Vanessa, her husband Clive and Duncan returned once again to live at Charleston.

In 1978 when Duncan Grant died, The Charleston Trust charity was set up to maintain and restore Charleston, both the house and gardens have been open to visitors since 1986.

East Sussex has long been a haven for artists and writers, and there are a number of wonderful places to visit less than an hour’s drive from The Grain Store Lewes.

You can take a walk along the ancient footpaths from Charleston to the pretty village of Firle, in one direction and Berwick Church in the other, home of stunning murals painted by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s beautiful cottage Monk’s House and garden, owned by the National Trust is open to the public in nearby Rodmell and is also well worth a visit.

Discover East Sussex and Charleston, the home of the Bloomsbury Group with a stay at The Grain Store Lewes.

With the South Downs National Park on our doorstep, there is plenty to explore for those who love fresh air and the countryside. Click here for our latest prices and availability and if you book for the Festival period we would like to offer you a special 10% discount.

stay@thegrainstorelewes.com

Article by Pip de Villiers