The Spink, Charleston Farmhouse
Following my climb up Windover Hill, I made the short journey west to Charleston Farmhouse. This beautiful place was once home to artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and played host to their circle of bohemian friends, now better known as the Bloomsbury Group.
The interior of the house, with its murals, painted furniture and fascinating collection of art and objects, is definitely magical. Unfortunately photography is not allowed inside, so I wasn’t able to capture that magic for this blog.
The house and garden at Charleston Farm
However, the perfect English cottage gardens more than made up for that loss. A riot of colourful and perfume, the gardens of Charleston Farmhouse are an oasis of peace and quiet. It was while wandering through those gardens that I came across a small orchard. Hiding in the shadows of the surrounding trees, I found a strange, rather magical sculpture.
The Spink in the garden of Charleston Farmhouse
Further research has revealed that this sphinx-like beast, which is carved out of a large stack of bricks, was created by Vanessa’s son Clive Bell in 1931 and is known as the Spink. Just like the mythical beast that it is named after, the Charleson spink is a bit of an enigma, loitering silently in a quiet corner of the garden.
What is it thinking? Your guess is as good as mine…
My search for magic 
June 23, 2014 at 6:43 am
I’ve never seen a sculpture that has been carved out of bricks before! That is certainly intriguing. I seem to remember that the Sphinx always posed a riddle for travellers to solve, so maybe this sculpture poses a riddle in itself: which came first, the bricks or the Sphinx?
June 23, 2014 at 12:32 pm
It is very unusual, isn’t it? It took me a while to work out what he had done – which is build a big block of bricks and then carve it out.