11 inspiring artists’ homes you can visit in the UK

20 May 2021

Creative sanctuaries

20 May 2021

Charleston studio, East Sussex, home to Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Photo: Lee Robbins

There’s something quite exhilarating about stepping into an artist’s home – it is, after all, the purest and most intimate expression of their creative process. From unfinished artworks to handcrafted personal touches, these domestic interiors are often littered with makers’ artefacts and detritus that kindle our voyeuristic tendencies. Here, we throw open the doors to some of the incredible creative sanctuaries you can visit in the UK.

Red House, London

Newlywed William Morris commissioned his friend, the architect Phillip Webb, to build him a home (and incubator for fellow artists) in 1859. He moved in with his wife, Jane, the following year and set about furnishing the interiors with designs of their own. Red House was decorated in bold, jewel-liked tones and pared-back Gothic furniture especially designed by Webb to complement the romantic style of the Bexleyheath residence. Webb wasn’t the only creative friend of the Morris’ who helped with the interiors of the house: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, Edward Burne-Jones, Jane and Elizabeth Burden all contributed mural paintings, furniture, stained glass and embroidery. This sense of community and artistic collaboration would eventually give rise to the Arts and Crafts movement.

Red House is open for pre-booked guided tours Friday to Sunday and on bank holidays. Tickets are released every Friday for the following week

A House for Essex, Wrabness

The living room of Perry’s House for Essex flanked by two of the artist’s colourful tapestries, which were acquired for the Crafts Council Collection. Photo: Jack Hobhouse. Courtesy: Living Architecture

While Grayson Perry has never actually lived in his unapologetically ornate House for Essex, walking through its doors is like stepping into the artist's mind. The two-bedroom project, commissioned by Living Architecture and designed in collaboration with FAT Architecture, is a ‘bonkers yet dignified’ shrine to the Perry’s home county that is near-impossible to miss: the façade is clad with over 1,900 green and white tiles. The interior features a number of Perry’s handmade ceramic pots, furnishings, mosaic floors and tapestries (two of which were acquired for the Crafts Council Collection) depicting the fictional life of Julie Cope, described by the artist as an ‘Essex everywoman’.

Living Architecture is opening the house to bookings – without its usual requirement to enter a ballot – for short-term stays from April to September 2021

575 Wandsworth Road, London

This Georgian terraced gem was once the home of Kenyan-born poet, novelist and civil servant Khadambi Asalache, who left the property to the National Trust in his will in 2006. Its unassuming exterior on 575 Wandsworth Road belies the extravagant visual feast that lies behind its façade. Over a span of nearly two decades, Asalache embellished every wall, ceiling and door of the house with carefully wrought fretwork which he cut by hand from discarded pine doors and reclaimed floorboards. Three distinct cultures inspired the Lambeth resident’s fretwork: traditional African houses; Moorish architecture in Andalusia; and Ottoman architecture. Photographs aren’t allowed at this achingly Instagram-worthy property (so much so we weren’t allowed to publish any) so be prepared to commit its dazzling interiors to memory – an easy task, we’d argue. The number of visitors is also tightly capped per year so you’ll need to book well in advance.

The National Trust hasn't yet announced when it will reopen 575 Wandsworth Road following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. Check the website for updates.

Charleston, East Sussex

Clive Bell’s study at Charleston. Photo: Penelope Fewster
The Garden Room at Charleston. The room’s decorative scheme of grey stencilled paisley shapes with freehand white flowers was carried out in 1945. Photo: Penelope Fewster

When Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved into Charleston house in 1916, they began to paint every surface imaginable – nowhere was off-limits, from fireplaces to bedheads, bookcases and even bathtubs. Today, the one-time haunt for the likes of Virginia Woolf and TS Eliot remains the only completely preserved Bloomsbury interior in the world. Upcoming exhibitions in the house include a new series of work by South African painter Lisa Brice and the first retrospective of Welsh artist Nina Hamnett (both from 19 May).

Book your visit to Charleston house and its exhibitions online

The Ceramic House, Brighton

The loft room at The Ceramic House. On the shelves are works by Ruta Bartkeviciute, Virginia Graham, and Chris Barnes. A trio of vases by Graham sits on the side table. Photo: Bernard G Mills
The living room fireplace of The Ceramic House. Photo: Bernard G Mills

Brighton-based architectural ceramicist Kay Aplin has transformed her own 1920s semi-detached home into a ‘living showcase’ with both interior and exterior installations of colourful ceramics tiles. Over the years, she’s curated several exhibitions of contemporary ceramic art at the property, which also hosts a pop-up gallery and artist residencies. The Ceramic House typically opens to the public in May as part of Artists Open Houses during the Brighton Festival. What’s more, you can now stay in its guesthouse since coronavirus restrictions have eased on self-contained accommodation.

Book your stay at The Ceramic House

The Mackintosh House, Glasgow

The Mackintosh House studio-drawing room. © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

The Victorian end-of-terrace house of Glasgow native Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and his wife, the artist Margaret Macdonal Mackintosh, was demolished in the early 1960s. Thankfully, many of the original fixtures – radical for their time – were preserved and reassembled by The Hunterian museum just 100 metres away in a new space that offers virtually the same views and effects of natural light as 78 Southpark Avenue. The interiors, completed in 1981, have been furnished with the Mackintoshes’ own furniture (all to Charles’ design) and decorated as closely as possible to the original.

The Mackintosh House will reopen in phases from 11 June

Stoneywell, Leicestershire

JRR Tolkien meets Arts and Crafts in this National Trust property that’s been enthusiastically likened to a hobbit house by more than one visitor online. The largest cottage in a series of rural retreats designed by architect Ernest Gimson for his brother, Stoneywell sits in the ancient woodland of Charnwood Forest and is considered a rare example from the Arts and Crafts movement. The property remained in the Gimson family for over a century until 2013, when it was acquired by the National Trust, and as a result much of the original furniture – including an oak bed made by Gimson – remains on display in the property.

The garden and woodland at Stoneywell are open. Timed tickets must be booked online prior to visiting and are released every Friday for the following week

Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, St Ives

The plaster workshop at Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden. Courtesy: Bowness. Photo: Rikard Österlund

‘It is completely perfect for me,’ wrote Barbara Hepworth of the studio she had acquired in the centre of St Ives in September 1949. She lived and worked in Trewyn studios – now the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden – until her death in an accidental fire on the property in 1975. At the artist’s wish, much of her remaining work was given to the nation and placed in the care of the Tate Gallery in 1980. The home embodies the spirit of Hepworth: most of the bronzes are positioned where the artist herself had placed them. There’s a plethora of photographs, articles and other ephemera from Herpworth’s own collection to explore, as well as examples of unfinished sculptures and the tools she used to make them. The garden, too, was laid out by Hepworth with help from a friend, the South African-British composer Priaulx Rainier.

Timed tickets must be booked online prior to visiting

David Parr House, Cambridge

Detail of the drawing room ceiling at the David Parr House. Photo: Howard Rice. Courtesy: David Parr House
Courtesy: David Parr House

One of Cambridge’s best kept secrets, the David Parr House is an intricate portal into the Arts and Crafts era. Parr, a working-class Victorian decorative artist who worked for local firm F R Leach & Sons, bought the terraced house on 186 Gwydir Street in 1886. His home became a patternbook of the work of late 19th century masters, including William Morris. The Grade II*-listed home was preserved by Parr’s granddaughter, Elsie Palmer, who lived there for over 85 years and whose vibrant presence is still felt in the home through her personal objects interspersed throughout the house.

Personal guided online 3D tours can be booked for £12 (£13.50 with donation) per person from 2 June. Garden tours will launch in July/August while in-person physical tours are expected to recommence in September

Dennis Severs’ House, London

China plates in the kitchen at Dennis Severs’ House
The Dickens Room at Dennis Severs’ House

‘The house’s ten rooms harbour ten “spells” that engage the visitor’s imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724-1914. Your senses are your guide,’ wrote Dennis Severs of his eclectic house on 18 Folgate Street. Severs lived at the Grade II-listed Georgian terraced house in Spitalfields from 1979 until 1999, gradually reimagining the rooms as a time capsule in the style of former centuries. Described by Severs himself as a ‘still-life drama’, the property was a historical imagination of what life would have been like for a fictional family of Huguenot silk weavers, arranged as though they were still in use and the occupants have only just left (take the display of items such as half-eaten bread, for example).

Dennis Severs’ House will reopen in June

Prospect Cottage, Dungeness

Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent, with an excerpt of John Donne’s poem The Sun Rising on the facade. Photo: Howard Sooley

The former home of the late filmmaker, artist and gay rights activist Derek Jarman was saved after a star-studded multi-million fundraising campaign led by Art Fund last year to secure its future as a centre of creative activity. Originally a Victorian fisherman’s hut, Prospect Cottage sits on a windswept Dungeness beach, surrounded by a remarkable garden that Jarman coaxed from the shingle himself. Inside, the cottage is filled with artefacts from Jarman’s life, from poetry etched into panes of glass to his treasured gardening tools and a painting by film director Gus van Sant. With Prospect Cottage now under new stewardship, arts charity Creative Folkestone is working to establish a residency programme for artists, writers, gardeners and filmmakers. Members of the public will eventually be allowed to apply to visit the cottage while ensuring that it is conserved and maintained as a work of art in itself – watch this space.

11 inspiring artists’ homes you can visit in the UK

Read more

11 interior designers championing makers

Craft exhibitions to see in the UK this spring