Kentish Express Ashford & District - What's On
EXHIBITION WITH AN LGBT THEME
An exhibition celebrating the interesting history of a country house and its cultural legacy opens this weekend. Playwrights, Pioneers and Provocateurs, which opens at the National Trust’s Smallhythe Place on Saturday, April 1, celebrates the LGBT history of the Tenterden house. Three remarkable women are at the centre of the exhibition, which runs until Sunday, October 29. Victorian actress Ellen Terry lived in the main house while her daughter Edy Craig lived in the Priest House in a menage a trois with Clare Atwood and Christopher St John, who was born Christabel Marshall. The three were part of a thriving community of contemporary artists who were open about their feelings and sexuality, which influenced their pioneering work. Nestled in the garden, surrounded by wild flowers, is Chris’s writing hut, where she wrote political and social plays and stories while Edy founded the Pioneer Players.
They counted among their contemporaries Vita Sackville- West, Chris’s onetime lover and Virginia Woolf. The exhibition is free to enter though normal admission applies to enter the house.
It is open 11am to 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday and Bank Holidays.
Visit nationaltrust.org.uk/ smallhythe-place