Charleston Farmhouse 1981

COMING SOON

A Photographic Recollection of the Home of the Bloomsbury Group in Sussex

‘From the simple exterior there were no signs of the uniquely decorated rooms and cherished objects. This was Charleston at a particular moment in time, when its fate was uncertain and the fragile beauty of its contents had been left undisturbed.’

Charleston in East Sussex is now renowned as the artistic refuge of the Bloomsbury Group, some of the 20th century’s most radical painters, writers and thinkers. After the death of its last occupant, Duncan Grant, however, the future of the house was far from certain.

As an art student in 1981, Kim Marsland discovered the farmhouse where Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant lived and worked at the heart of a wide cultural circle, fusing the fine and decorative arts to create interiors where every surface was adorned. Few books had been written about the Bloomsbury Group at the time, so Marsland contacted Charleston’s first curator to arrange a visit. She found a house that had remained virtually untouched since Grant’s death in 1978.

Left alone to wander from room to room, she came across open sketchbooks, abandoned photographs, piles of books, drawings, paintbrushes and a crooked lampshade, all as Grant had left them. The photographs she took that day, now published in this new edition, are intensely evocative. They offer a fascinating view of past lives and a remarkable sense of place, hinting at Charleston’s vibrant and highly unconventional history.

Marsland was struck by the strong presence of character she felt among tiny treasures such as Bell’s notebooks and Grant’s dust-covered shoes, and that rare spirit runs through every page of this beautifully haunting book. It takes the reader back to a fleeting period before the farmhouse’s complete restoration by the Charleston Trust, and will be a revelation even for those who know the house and gardens well. It recalls a time when Charleston’s future was precarious, and when the chance to glimpse the Bloomsbury Group’s extraordinary lives could so easily have been lost for ever.

About the author

Kim Marsland studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where she was taught by Quentin Blake and Sheila Robinson. She is an artist and lecturer, and lives in Sussex.

Published by Random Spectacular, the publishing imprint of St Jude’s.

Size: A5 portrait (210 x 148mm)
Pages: 64 plus cover
Cover: Clothbound with inset photograph
Publication date: Early November 2026

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