Here is an artist’s home I revisit year after year. For those who are less familiar with the inspiration of this important place, it is quite simply one of refuge, past and present.

Charleston house was found by the artist Vanessa Bell and her family, as a retreat where she could paint and live her unusual and progressive personal life. In the inter war period, general marital social expectations remained traditional and the law was assertive on anyone that strayed. Vanessa and her more famous sister, Virginia Woolf, were quiet, subtle, brave pioneers of modern lifestyles that today are very much taken for granted. Bell had many relationships with men who had same sex relationships with each other and Woolf had a same sex affair with the notable writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West.

However this is not why Charleston appeals to me. It is because Bell and her associates painted the interior in a unique personal style. Interior decor combined with the garden design make a strong personal statement of self expression, inside and out. The walls are covered with motives, figures, patterns, all hand painted as well as ceramics scattered throughout the house. It is only in recent years that tours with photography have been permitted, rather strange for such a challenging history, however here we are.

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Such an experience makes one want to go straight back home and start painting the walls, by hand. Don’t get worried about why it doesn’t look like a magazine article, or a neat Farrow and Ball design. Potato prints, patterns? Edge borders? Fluffy edges, one colour over another? Maybe start in a small room, a box room or lavatory if you’re feeling a little nervous.

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Now for the garden, it is rather unique in my garden visiting experience. I have seen many gardens all over the south east, including many famous ones. But Charleston has sharp hot colours, those happy hollyhocks sprawling everywhere, all inside a neat strict square wall. Apparently they love to be treated badly, growing in gravel or dust, I look out for them locally as well as try to grow them at home.

The whole effect stays in my mind, dare I say even more so than Sissinghurst, which is certainly on par with it’s importance. Most of all, it is reachable, domestic, not too big or grand. Charleston is inclusive. It isn’t an ancestral home to anyone, none of the Bloomsbury group who lived here or near here boasted about any family line here, the whole house was rented from Lord Gage, owner of nearby Firle Place. Nothing could be more impermanent or transient. When the last family member died, the whole house was going to be white washed and made ready for the new tenant. What an idea! Charleston Trust was born and eventually the house was saved and preserved for us all. The final gallery photograph shows inside Firle Place, recently featured in a new film of Jane Austen’s Emma.