Conference goers enjoy the fine weather at Charleston before the banquet for the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference, held July 4-8 at King’s College London and the University of Sussex.
We dined at Charleston.
Not in the home’s dining room, where every surface is decorated and everyone from Virginia and Leonard Woolf to Roger Fry to Maynard Keynes to Desmond and Molly MacCarthy to T.S. Eliot to Jean Renoir once shared meals and drinks.
That room, with a large round table painted by Vanessa Bell, seats six and would be exceedingly small for the 150 of us who attended the traditional banquet celebrating the 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Dissidence.
Gathering in the Hay Barn
Instead, on July 7 we gathered at long tables, beautifully set, in the nearby Hay Barn. I could hardly imagine a more magical, charming site for a meal with so many Woolfians.
We had piled onto buses and rode the 11 miles from the University of Sussex conference site to Charleston, the longtime home of Vanessa and Clive Bell that hosted frequent guests from the Bloomsbury group and beyond.
Our tour of the house and the garden ended with a cocktail reception in the garden before a dinner of boeuf en daube or a vegetarian option in the Hay Barn, located across a short gravel path from the house.
A granddaughter remembers Charleston
Virginia Nicholson
I was excited to hear — and meet — Virginia Nicholson, our speaker that night, as I admire her work — Singled Out – How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War (2007) and Millions Like Us – Women’s Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949 (2011).
I was also curious about her memories. As the daughter of Quentin Bell, the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell, and the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, who died 14 years before she was born — she had many to share.
Nicholson recalled that the children slept in the attic (now off limits to visitors) when they stayed at Charleston, and she described the atmosphere of the home as “uninhibited and sort of liberated.”
She remembered wearing a mauve dress at the age of five as Vanessa and Duncan Grant painted her portrait, earning a six-pence bribe to sit for them. She owns the painting by Grant but laments the fact that Vanessa’s portrait has never been located.
Nicholson spoke of visiting Monk’s House while Leonard Woolf was alive, and she emphasized his thoughtfulness. When talking to him, “he stopped to think of what he’d say, then he would say it.”
Over the years, Charleston fell into disrepair, and when an effort was made to save it, the Charleston Trust was formed. That work began at Nicholson’s kitchen table, with notes taken on the backs of envelopes. Since 2018, she has served as the president of the Charleston Trust, and Charleston is an internationally renowned museum.
Today, she said, she is “thrilled, amazed and delighted” that the Bloomsbury summer home survives.
It even smells the same. The treasure I grew up with hasn’t changed. I think Vanessa would also recognize that her spirit is still alive here.
Here are some photos from our once-in-a-lifetime evening at Charleston.
Gathering in the Charleston garden for cocktails before dinner.
Long tables, beautifully set, filled the Hay Barn for the conference banquet at Charleston as Vara Neverow, one of the traditional Woolf Players, reads a passage from Woolf’s work.
Banquet goers filled the Hay Barn at Charleston
Jane Goldman of Scotland and Davi Pino of Brazil are engrossed in conversation at the banquet.
Artists Kabe Wilson of England and Ane Thon Knutsen of Norway
Cecilia Servatius of Austria and AnneMarie Bantzinger of the Netherlands
Conference organizers Anna Snaith, Helen Tyson, and Clara Jones react with surprise and glee as they open their thank you gifts presented by Amy Smith, vice president of the International Virginia Woolf Society.
Conference organizers Anna Snaith, Helen Tyson, and Clara Jones happily show off their thank you gifts presented by Amy Smith, vice president of the International Virginia Woolf Society. They received first American editions of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, The Years, and The Captain’s Death Bed, and Other Essays.
