Ham Spray House

Ham Spray House is a house dating from around 1830. It is constructed of stucco over brick, with a slate roof. The main facade, facing the garden, has two storeys and five bays. A long extension runs to the east, with a rear elevation incorporating brick and flint. The central doorway has a half-glazed panel with margin glazing, accompanied by large 12-pane sash windows. A square cast iron porch, topped with a raised ball finial, replaces an earlier verandah. At the rear, the central bay projects, featuring a wide entrance door with side lights. A wing to the west culminates in a bow with four sashes on each floor. The roof is hipped, with boxed eaves.

The interior features ceiling cornices. The kitchen and larder are decorated with blue and yellow tiles, reportedly designed by Dora Carrington.

Ham Spray House was home to the artist Dora Carrington, Ralph Partridge, and the writer Lytton Strachey. Carrington and Partridge married in 1921 and moved into the house in 1924, along with Strachey. Following Strachey’s death in 1932, Dora Carrington died by suicide shortly thereafter.

Lytton Strachey wrote Elizabeth and Essex (1928), Portraits in Miniature (1931), and Characters and Commentaries (1933) in the first-floor library, which was designed by Carrington. This library retains fireplace tiles bearing Strachey’s monogram, as well as a painting of an owl on a book, and a false bookcase with book spines displaying humorous titles.

Ham Spray House holds significance as a building associated with the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of artists and writers prominent in the early to mid-20th century. The group included Carrington, Partridge, Strachey, Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, E.M. Forster, and John Maynard Keynes. They were influential in art, literature, philosophy, and culture, and were known for challenging conventional norms, including exploring diverse sexual and romantic relationships.