DINING-ROOM
The English glass cabinet in the corner of the room, by the front window, came from 22 Hyde Park Gate, Virginia’s childhood home. It contains decanters and brandy-glasses from that period.
CLIVE BELL’S LIBRARY
The round dining-table in the centre of the room belonged to Dadie Rylands. The famous lunch recorded by Virginia in A Room of One’s Own was eaten at this table.
THE SPARE BEDROOM
The dressing table belonged to Julia Stephen, Virginia’s mother. In writing about her mother’s death, Virginia mentioned this piece of furniture: ‘I remember the long looking-glass; with the drawers on either side … and the great bed on which my mother lay’ (Moments of Being, Hogarth Press, 1985, pp. 91-2).
THE GARDEN ROOM
Above the radiator is a painting by Vanessa Bell, ’46, Gordon Square’, the Stephens’ first home in Bloomsbury.
WALL BETWEEN THE GARDEN ROOM AND VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM
G. F. Watts’ portrait of Maria Jackson, Virginia’s grandmother.
VANESSA BELL’S BEDROOM
Beside the tall cupboard is a pastel by Duncan Grant of Angelica Bell, aged seventeen, dressed as Ellen Terry for her role in Virginia Woolf’s play, Freshwater.
THE STUDIO
The Dutch walnut glass-fronted cabinet once belonged to the novelist, W. M. Thackeray. Vanessa inherited it from her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, whose first wife had been Thackeray’s younger daughter, Minnie. Presumably it came from 22 Hyde Park Gate.
For some of Virginia’s references to Charleston, see Diary, 16 August 1918, 5 March 1919, 26 September 1920, 26 August 1922, 6 August 1923; Letters, no. 2307, 5 January 1931.
copyright© Sheila M. Wilkinson & VWSGB 2001