What would it have been like here when they were all living here?
Well, the artists moved here in 1916 and it was quite a remote place, basically in the middle of a field. But although you might think it was quite isolated, they had a lot of deliveries – the baker, the postman (who came three times a day, so if you wanted to invite someone for tea you could invite them in the morning and they could reply – almost like the texting we do now). They also had the newspaper being delivered and all sorts of food being delivered to the house as well as the farm next door. We still have a working farm next door and that would have been a hive of activity, so although it feels removed and remote, it would have also felt like there was a lot of life around you.
What was the house itself like when they arrived?
So when you come to Charleston today, you’ll see almost 60 years of decorations and experiments in interiors but when the artists arrived, it would have been very different. It was covered in very, very floral wallpaper. It had been a guest house before they moved in so it had been attracting people down to Sussex as tourists to come and enjoy the countryside just as it does today but it would have been very floral, with very Victorian and Edwardian decor. So the first thing they would have done was to have the whole house whitewashed in this lovely white chalk to which they added some red and some dark blue to create this soft light grey colour that covered the whole of the inside of the house. And that gave them a blank canvas for their decorations.
What did the neighbours think of them?
After WWI when they were able to go back to their London and European lives (as part of which they had their big studios and their house in the south of France) but they kept Charleston on as their summer place and they would come in August and September when the garden was gorgeous and the whole place was humming with heat and activity. At that stage, they didn’t really involved with the local society. But with the advent of WWII, they decided to make Charleston their primary home so they gave up their flats in London and their property in France and moved everything here. And at that point, they started to get really involved in what was going on locally and as part of the war effort.
Duncan Grant and Clive Bell joined the Home Guard and were out looking for paratroopers on the Downs and Vanessa Bell joined the Pig Club so she was collecting scraps and feeding the pigs. She would have had a portion of that pig once it was sent to the butcher. Virginia Woolf was giving lectures to the WI and Leonard Woolf was working with the Labour Party in Brighton. So they suddenly became part of the community. They were also decorating murals at Berwick Church which is only a few miles and away and they developed a completely different relationship with Charleston and Sussex.
So, would they have walked much in the surrounding countryside?
When they first moved here in 1916, the only way to get here was by taxi and horse drawn cab which they would have caught from Lewes or Berwick station. And therefore, walking was a really important part of getting around. We are right on the what is now the South Downs Way and the old coach road would have been a really good way to get from Charleston to Firle village and the shop, Post Office and pub, or further on to Glynde and the station there.
Virginia Woold would have been at Rodmell. She was well known for her walking and she often wrote about her walks in her diaries and letters, and also in her essays. She’s mainly known for her walking in London but she also enjoyed walking in the countryside too. Then came bicycles and you can imagine them hurtling across the Downs on their bikes and later they would invest in motor vehicles so would have been driving backwards and forwards in the 1930s and 40s. Firle is a wonderful place for walks and the people who work here still walk together today.
If you’ve enjoyed this post about the Bloomsbury Group, you may like the other posts in this series:
