A great conversationalist, Desmond MacCarthy was a frequent visitor to Charleston, the Sussex countryside retreat of the Bloomsbury group.

There are no surprises with his education. Like many of Bloomsbury, he had the benefit of elitist learning at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was successful as a journalist and literary editor, working on New Quarterly, Eye Witness, Life and Letters, and the New Statesman which he joined in 1913. He was also a literary critic for the Sunday Times. His ambitions as a novelist never bore fruit.

He was knighted in 1951.

• Charleston Farmhouse Exterior Photos