Charleston Trust launches final crowdfunding campaign

And it has partnered with Art Happens, the Art Fund’s crowdfunding platform for museums and galleries, to raise the final funds.

Thirty-one years after it first opened its doors to the public, Charleston continues to be a site of pilgrimage for people from all over the world who come to be inspired by its unique Bloomsbury interior.

But seven months after it was forced to close and cancel its flagship literary festival – the doors remain closed.

Museums and galleries were told in July that they could open again, but for places such as Charleston this has simply not been possible.

The intimate domestic spaces of the house have prevented the independent charity from being able to reopen because they make social distancing and other Covid-proofing measures impossible without significant changes to the way Charleston is equipped and operates.

Since the charity was formed in the 1980s it has relied on ticket sales and visitor spend in its shops and cafe to survive, rather than public money.

This income stopped overnight on March 18.