Dorothy Parker famously said of the Bloomsbury Group that “they painted in circles, lived in squares, and loved in triangles.” While this group of writers, artists, and intellectuals was based in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, they often ventured beyond London – particularly to Dorset, and especially to Studland.
The group’s core consisted of sisters Virginia Woolf, the writer, and Vanessa Bell, the painter. Around them were economist John Maynard Keynes, novelist EM Forster, post-impressionist painter Duncan Grant, art critic Roger Fry and biographer Lytton Strachey. The spouses – art critic Clive Bell and essayist Leonard Woolf – were also integral. Many in the group were bisexual and had numerous affairs, rejecting Victorian conventions in favour of bohemian ideals that prioritised personal relationships and individual pleasure.
Virginia and Vanessa’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, first brought them to Lyme Regis in 1901. They returned to Studland with friends in 1909, perhaps inspired by Stephen’s work editing one of Thomas Hardy’s novels. For Virginia, who struggled with bouts of severe depression, the trips offered respite from London.
The new train service to Swanage brought many artists to Purbeck for the first time, drawn by its dramatic coastline and downlands dotted with clay pits and prehistoric barrows. Dorset artist John Everett encouraged his contemporaries from the Slade School of Fine Art to visit. Inspired by the area, the Stephen sisters often brought their friends along.
In a 1909 letter from Studland, Virginia wrote: ‘Julian rushes straight into the sea. Nessa tucks her skirt up. Clive dives from a boat in a tight black suit. Yesterday I hired a gentleman’s – it was bi-sexual – bathing dress, and swam far out, until the seagulls played over my head.’
The Dreadnought Hoax
In 1910, Virginia and Vanessa returned to Dorset with friends, including Horace de Vere Cole, who was known for his
elaborate pranks. At the time, there was a rivalry between the officers of HMS Hawke and
HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy’s flagship stationed at Portland. A friend from the Hawke joked to Cole: ‘Couldn’t you do something to pull the leg of the Dreadnought? They want taking down a bit.’
Taking up the challenge, Cole and his friends staged one of the most famous hoaxes in British history. Disguised as Abyssinian royals – complete with blackface, turbans and robes – they tricked the Navy into giving them an honour-guarded tour of the Dreadnought. Unable to find an Abyssinian flag, the Navy used Zanzibar’s flag instead and played its anthem.
Throughout the tour, the group communicated in a mix of Latin and Greek gibberish, punctuated by cries of “Bunga, bunga!” De Vere Cole ensured the prank gained national attention by sending photos and an account of their escapade to the Daily Mirror. While the Navy was humiliated and threatened the hoaxers with symbolic caning, no real punishment followed and Virginia later drew on the experience for her short story,
A Society.
The War changed all
In 1911, Vanessa and Virginia stayed at Harmony Cottages in Studland with Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry. Both Fry and Vanessa painted scenes from their holiday – and began an affair. Fry’s Studland Bay, one of the first post-impressionist paintings by an English artist, used simplified forms and mosaic-like shapes. Vanessa’s Studland Beach reflected similar influences, particularly Matisse, with its bold colours, rhythmic lines and simplified forms. The painting is often regarded as a visual equivalent to her sister’s experimental literary work, To the Lighthouse.
The sisters were also active in the women’s rights movement. Vanessa captured a leading suffragist on Studland Beach holding a Votes for Women pamphlet, highlighting the political undercurrents of their time.
Lady Ottoline Morrell rented Cliff End Villa in Studland during Easter 1911. There, she began an affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell, exchanging more than 2,000 love letters.
In her open marriage, Lady Ottoline was unafraid to take other lovers.
Leonard Woolf married Virginia in 1912, though their relationship remained platonic. Vanessa once observed that Virginia “never had understanding or sympathised with sexual passion in men.”
The group returned to Dorset in 1913, but with the outbreak of the First World War, the Bloomsbury Group retreated to Charleston in Sussex. There were still visits to Dorset, such as when Virginia and Leonard saw Thomas Hardy at Max Gate in 1926 – but the visits were more sporadic.
The Crichel Boys
After the Second World War, Dorset welcomed a new bohemian circle echoing the Bloomsbury spirit. Three “hyphenated gentlemen-aesthetes” – Eddy Sackville-West, Eardley Knollys and Desmond Shawe-Taylor – bought Crichel House on Cranborne Chase. Bed-hopping was de rigueur at their bohemian weekends of croquet and connoisseurship, recreating some of the intellectual atmosphere of the pre-war Bloomsbury set.
Guests included Duncan Grant, EM Forster and Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s former lover. Vanessa Bell painted at Crichel House but Virginia was no longer part of these gatherings, having taken her own life in 1941, during the Second World War.
by Rupert Hardy
The Tate has a fascinating gallery of images available to view, all taken by Vanessa Bell during the 1910 stay on Studland.