Dimbola
Former home and workplace of Julia Margaret Cameron
For 15 years between 1860 to 1875, Dimbola was Julia’s home and workplace. It is now preserved by the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust and open to the public.
Once two adjacent dwellings in the rural idyll of Freshwater Bay, the Camerons built a central tower to form their new home. The name ‘Dimbola’ was chosen by the Camerons after the tea and coffee plantations they owned in Dimbula, Sri Lanka.
As she records in her memoirs, she turned an old ‘glazed fowl house’ into a studio, and set about photographing everyone from famous visitors to her own maids, locals and children.
Inside the house now are preserved features including Gothic carvings, William Morris wallpaper, her original design stairway, Victorian glass and a re-creation of her bedroom.
Julia Margaret Cameron
(1815 - 1879)
Julia Margaret Cameron was one of the most important early photographers and is now recognised the world over as a pioneer of photography as art.
A woman ahead of her time, she was ambitious and freethinking when most Victorian women were passive and demure. She took on the challenges of handling large cameras and dangerous chemicals at a time when photography was known as ‘The Black Art’.
Ignoring conventions, she experimented with composition and focus. Today she is credited with creating the first photographic close-up portraits and influencing the subsequent Pictorialism movement with her use of diffused focus.
Her portraits of ‘famous men and fair women’, reflect her time within the Freshwater Circle, the birth of celebrity and her ambitions to be recognised as significant artist of her time.
The majority of her photographic work was created here at Dimbola. Her work is found in major archives the world over including our own growing Permanent Collection.
The Freshwater Circle
Julia's home became a focal point for a crowd of bohemian artists, writers and poets.
Key friends included her neighbour and poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson and her artistic mentor, the sculptor and painter G.F. Watts. Dimbola was ideally located just 10 minutes walk up from Freshwater Bay, approximately a third of the way along what has since been named ‘The Tennyson Mile’.
"Freshwater in the 1860s and 1870s was unique, for not only was it an enchanting place in itself with high downs, glorious views of the English Channel and air “worth sixpence a pint” as Tennyson wrote to a friend, but a delightful company of people had come to live there to be near their friend Tennyson”. Anne Thackery
Other famous Victorians who lived nearby or made visits to Dimbola or Farringford, Tennyson’s home include the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt, the actress Ellen Terry and Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland.
The Julia Margaret Cameron Trust
A charity established in 1993 with the aim of preserving Julia Margaret Cameron’s home on the Isle of Wight.
Formed in 1993, a small band of volunteers and enthusiasts saved the house from partial demolition by purchasing it and turning it into a pioneering mix of museum and arts centre.
We have since purchased the house outright, developed collections and improved the decor to something far more appropriate to its Victorian original, and hosted many exhibitions and cultural events and visits, everyone from Patti Smith to Anthony Minghella, Ken Russell to Annie Liebovitz. Seamus Heaney to Robert Plant. Sponsors have included Olympus Cameras and Solo Music Agency.
We are looking to take the Trust forward with a lottery bid to further improve public access, replant Julia’s garden, and add further exhibition space.