Left: through its former owner, Dimbola Lodge played a vital role in the nurturing of photography.

The former home of photography pioneer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79) has been Grade II listed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Of architectural and historic interest, Dimbola Lodge, owned and cared for by The Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, will now receive official protection against inappropriate alteration and redevelopment.

Named after the family tea plantation in Ceylon, Cameron lived at Dimbola for 15 years, during which time she received a camera, converted the fowl-house into a studio, built a dark room and produced some of early photography's most striking images.

The announcement follows in the wake of a major retrospective of Julia Margaret Cameron's work at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Right: Julia Margaret Cameron - the photographer caught in front of the lens. © Science Museum/ Science and Society Picture Library.

“Julia Margaret Cameron is without a doubt one of the most important members of the photographic movement,” explained Arts Minister, Tessa Blackstone.

“Her searching portraits of eminent Victorian writers, artists and scientists in many cases remain the definitive images of the today.”

In 1860, Julia Margaret Cameron bought two adjacent cottages from a local fisherman, linking the two with a central tower in the Gothic style popular at the time. Three years later, at the age of 48, she was given her first camera by her daughter and son-in-law and never looked back.

Taking to her new hobby with great enthusiasm, Cameron produced over 3000 photographs of startling clarity and strength in little more than a decade.

Left: one of the neighbours, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who sat for the photographer in 1865. © National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford / Science and Society Picture Library.

Among the many eminent Victorians who came to Dimbola to sit for a portrait were her neighbours Alfred, Lord Tennyson and GF Watts, not to mention Charles Darwin, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll and Ellen Terry.

The house soon became the centre of a literary, artistic and cultural circle where guests included John Everett Millais, Thomas Carlyle and Italian patriot, Garibaldi.

When the family returned to Ceylon in 1875 the lodge was returned to its original use as two houses, named Dimbola and Cameron House.

Unoccupied and threatened with demolition, The Julia Margaret Cameron Trust obtained a grant from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts to buy Cameron House in 1993. Shortly afterwards, the Trust purchased Dimbola with support from Olympus Cameras and the house was secured and opened to visitors.

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