B2B Day 33: Enjoying Arts and Crafts in Kelmscott

William Morris (by Philip Webb)

Back in 2008 we toured Kelmscott Manor, one of the homes of William Morris, who is associated with the beginning of the Arts and Crafts movement—a reaction to the mechanisation and industrialisation of Victorian society near the end of the nineteenth century. Morris and his associates, who included the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the designer/architect Philip Webb, and the painter/designer Edward Burne-Jones among others, participated in and executed a wide variety of arts and crafts, including printing and book design, tapestry-making, designing and producing stained glass windows, and much more. Morris is still well known for his wallpaper patterns and furniture designs. I was excited to return to tour Kelmscott Manor, knowing that it had undergone a significant refurbishment. I also know more about William Morris than when we first visited, thanks to a directed study with a student who prompted me to read William Morris's intriguing utopian novel News from Nowhere. This was handsomely printed by the Kelmscott Press in 1892—the name itself a tribute to Morris's love for his home on the upper Thames and whose woodcut illustration decorates the book's frontispiece (see below). The house is interesting in its own right as an example of a well-preserved late 16th-century farmhouse, but what makes it even more special is that it is full of beautiful things made by Morris, his family, and his friends.

News from Nowhere: Kelmscott Manor as pictured in 1892

Kelmscott Manor as photographed in 2023

We had pre-booked our tickets to tour Kelmscott Manor before our trip, so we showed up a little before opening time at 11:00 a.m. and waited outside in the cold, which has been persistent these last few days. We started a conversation with a British couple that was interesting, but never got to finish it because the museum guides began letting people into the house. So that we could move at a slower pace, we let a group of Americans from Virginia travelling on a "Road Scholars" educational tour go ahead of us. We wanted to savour our own tour on our own time.

Morris wallpaper

We explored the house from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and it was interesting to see that the rooms were slightly different than from our previous visit, and some had had the walls repapered. I love the gorgeous designs of Morris wallpaper! Knowing that Morris and his wife and daughters taught themselves to do the crafts they produced made seeing the items that much more impressive. William Morris's daughter embroidered a poem around the decorative canopy of Morris's bed, and Morris himself also learned how to embroider, which would typically have been considered a woman's accomplishment. 

William Morris's bedroom

After lunch at the very busy manor tea room (Moroccan spicy tagine for Ken, falafel salad for Sara, and, of course, some tea), we looked around the shop and bought a Morris design postcard for Ken's mom. We also both very much liked a beautiful set of 2 Morris designed mugs, but figured they'd be a bit hard to carry in our backpacks! After Ken took several pictures of the east front of the manor house trying to duplicate the view of it portrayed in News from Nowhere, we left around 2:30 p.m. and had a lazy "rest day" afternoon at our B&B. I napped and read the guidebook for Kelmscott Manor. Ken did some work on the OS maps of our walking days so far that he had prepared for the blog, revising them to reflect the route that we had actually walked. Later, we had another dinner at the local pub, the Plough Inn, and then went home to a warming bath (for me) and a good night's sleep.

The festive Plough Inn, Kelmscott

Ken at the Plough, with Morris-inspired wall-covering!

 

 

 

Picture credit for frontispiece of William Morris, News from Nowhere (Kelmscott Press, 1892). Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4573221