Charleston Farmhouse will be getting an upgrade to the tune of £2.4 million.
The money comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is part of £10 million in funding for a variety of projects, including those at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Cardigan Castle, Ceredigion and the Royal Crescent, as well as Charleston.
Charleston, located in Lewes and the country home of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, will use its funds to redevelop the building and museum into a new education and exhibition space for its thousands of annual visitors.
The expansion and restoration will include:
- Restoration of the Charleston Barn
- Recreation of the granary that stood on the site until the 1970s
- Creation of new buildings in a hidden courtyard behind the barn
- Creation of an auditorium, a new studio learning space, and storage for the Charleston Trust’s reserve collection of 8,000 works
- An expanded café and shop.
- A new access route and less obtrusive car park
- Restoration of existing buildings, which will return Charleston to the way it looked in the 1950s.
Virginia Nicholson, granddaughter of Vanessa Bell, said: “I have known and loved this house and its surrounding buildings for more than 50 years. I played on the farm as a child, and I am delighted to think that Charleston has such an exciting future in the 21st century.”
Charleston also served as a country retreat for the writers, artists and intellectuals who made up the Bloomsbury Group, including Leonard andVirginia Woolf, whose country place, Monk’s House, was located nearby.
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This is truly wonderful news!!