This unique museum near Lewes preserves the home and legacy of artists and Bloomsbury Group members Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Tour the colourful house, learn a new skill in a workshop and enjoy a programme of public events including the famous Charleston Festival.

Bell, Grant and their associates, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and E.M. Forster, promoted design and radical thinking. The house is stuffed full of paintings and handcrafted artefacts and signs of its famous visitors. The gift shop has associated books and artwork as you’d expect, plus accessories incorporating Bloomsbury group designs.

The literary Charleston Festival in May is the key event in the calender while autumn sees short stories under the spotlight at Small Wonder. The events attract notable writers like Ian McEwan and Ali Smith.

Workshops run on site range from the likes of basketry, floristry, woodcut, stained glass and oil painting for adults to Young Bohemian and family art classes during the school holidays.

Lead photo by Penelope Fewster, house and studio photos by Tony Tree