The Cotswold Arts and Crafts House
Mary Greensted

The dining room at Rodmarton Manor

Throughout his working life, William Morris - designer, poet, writer and socialist - emphasized the importance of the home environment. In a typically unequivocal vein, he wrote, 'If I were asked to say what is at once the most important production of art and the thing most to be longed for, I should answer, A beautiful House'.

However 'a beautiful house' in Arts and Crafts terms was not a straightforward creation. It involved a complex, and sometimes tortuous, balance between conformity and individuality, simplicity and elaboration, comfort and inspiration.

The designer Walter Crane highlighted the potential anomaly in Morris's ideas about the Arts and Crafts interior when he described it as encompassing either simplicity or splendour. However Morris saw and accepted this; beauty did not necessarily mean luxury while luxury and the show of wealth rarely produced beauty. 'This simplicity you may make as costly as you please … you may hang your walls with tapestry instead of whitewash or paper; or you may cover them with mosaic, or have them frescoed by a great painter: all this is not luxury if it be done for beauty's sake and not for show.' Morris realised that even minimalism could cost money and these two terms, simplicity and splendour, remain pivotal to descriptions of the Arts and Crafts domestic interior.

In theory the Arts and Crafts enthusiasm for simplicity altered the domestic interior quite drastically from its mid-nineteenth-century emphasis on show and novelty. Morris's forthright statement that 'I have never been in any rich man's house which would not look the better for having a bonfire made outside of nine-tenths of all that it held' was echoed in milder form by other writers and designers. The Arts and Crafts ideal, as represented by drawings, illustrations and photographs of Arts and Crafts interiors in magazines such as The Studio and Country Life, swept away the vast array of decorative work, furniture, soft furnishings and ornaments which were found in the typical Victorian house. They were often replaced with built-in fixtures, such as inglenooks or settles, decorative wall treatments and friezes, and bold concentrated areas of colour and decoration.

Morris was the father figure of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Many of his ideas about art and design and their relationship to everyday life were taken up by the next generation. He raised contemporary concerns about fitness for purpose, the protection of the environment, and anti-materialism, which have remained influential up to the present day. In many ways the Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds saw his ideas put into practice in their purest and most radical form.

Walk into an Arts and Crafts Movement cottage in the Cotswolds and the first impression is of simplicity, restraint and restfulness derived from the muted and harmonious shades of oak, whitewash and limestone. You notice small details: beautifully made doors with long strap hinges ending in a heart shape, a glimmer of
steel from the fire tools in the fireplace, possibly some decorative plasterwork
on the walls or beams giving a soft-focus suggestion of the local flora and fauna,
and spots of brighter colour provided by a rag rug at the hearth, a piece of boldly patterned pottery, or a vase of flowers picked locally. This type of cottage is typical of the houses designed by Ernest Gimson and the brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley. They were three young architects in their late twenties who gave up professional careers in London and Birmingham in 1893. Inspired by William Morris they decided to move to the Cotswolds to work as architects, designers and makers. They wanted to absorb local traditions, learn how to work with a range of local materials, and revitalize the wider craft community. They stayed at Ewen near Cirencester before moving into Pinbury Park, in 1894. This was a largely Elizabethan farmhouse on the estate of Lord Bathurst in a poor state of repair. Ernest Barnsley, the eldest and most experienced of the three, took on the work of repairing and renovating the house while his brother and friend converted outbuildings into cottage accommodation. In about 1902 the Bathursts took over Pinbury Park for their own use but gave each man land in the nearby village of Sapperton to build themselves a house. The Barnsleys' houses were built using local materials - local stone quarried from Sapperton Common, dressed stone from Minchinhampton for the window lintels, and stone tiles for the roofing. Gimson too used local materials and building traditions apart from the roofing. He chose to have a thatched roof executed by John Durham, a traditional thatcher from Oxfordshire. He liked the organic quality of thatch with its undulations over numerous dormer windows carrying the eye from one end of the cottage to the other. Like his friends' homes it was so sympathetically built that it quickly blended into the locality. He was particularly pleased when one visitor asked him the age of his house, expecting to be told centuries rather than years. They built and extended numerous houses and cottages in the Cotswolds as did their friends and associates, including Alfred Powell and Norman Jewson.

The wall and ceilings of these houses were usually whitewashed with lime. The architect, writer and educationalist William Lethaby was a great friend of the Cotswold group. He suggested adding a little ochre pigment to the whitewash but warned against the addition of any blue colouring. He also recommended painting the woodwork a light buff or stone colour if the wood was not good enough to be left bare. For everyday tables he recommended scrubbing the top with hot water, soap and sand until the surface was 'soft and clean as a sheet'.

Wood panelling, also known as wainscoting, was the preferred wall covering in the main rooms of large houses. It was the simplest option for providing a plain but rich and long-lasting wall surface. However it was also one that required a significant financial outlay. Where they could be afforded, oak panels, usually on a frame of pitch pine, were ideal. At Rodmarton Manor, near Cirencester, designed by Ernest Barnsley for Claud and Margaret Biddulph in 1909, the main reception rooms had been used primarily for communal activities: for craft classes, including basket making, embroidery and woodworking, and for musical and theatrical entertainments fulfilling the role of a village hall. The Biddulph family used the more intimate two-storey wing for their everyday living accommodation. As they began to make regular domestic use of the main house in the late 1920s, Barnsley's austere stone-walled interiors were considered too spartan for family life. The architect and designer Alfred Powell, the Biddulphs' friend and frequent guest at Rodmarton, produced new designs for the drawing room. The walls were panelled with oak by the estate workshop and round the door frames and along the picture rail ran a scheme of carved designs based on floral motifs seen by Powell at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This created a warmer, richer, more intimate space for domestic use.

Apart from aesthetics, Arts and Crafts designers chose simplicity for moral reasons. They used unpolished oak, stone, brick, or slate in building and furnishing houses because the raw materials were readily available in Britain, had been traditionally used for these purposes and were in keeping with the climate, light and national character. Stone floors were often laid throughout the ground floor areas including kitchens, sculleries and such like, as they were hard-wearing and functional with a natural beauty and light-reflective quality. Above all simplicity was necessary to achieve repose for all the senses so they tried to limit the variety of flooring materials used.

Many gardens were designed as an integral part of the Arts and Crafts house. Ernest Barnsley laid out the garden of his own home at Sapperton and designed that at Rodmarton Manor. It was laid out by Margaret Biddulph and her gardener William Scrubey as a series of rooms separated by hedges and other planting. The garden becomes less formal and closer to nature as you move away from the house. Gardens were very important to craftswomen such as the embroiderer, Eve Simmonds, who lived at Far Oakridge from 1919 and the hand-block printers of textiles Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. The flowers in their garden at Painswick were an inspiration for their patters and for Larcher's exquisite paintings.

A Cotswold Home: The People's Arts and Crafts Show
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, 18 June - 20 August 2005
In March 2004 local people were encouraged to bring along their treasured Arts and Crafts Movement items to a special roadshow event. Curator Mary Greensted and freelance expert Barley Roscoe were on hand to identify items where necessary and provide background information. From this event a wide range of pieces including furniture, metalwork, jewellery, ceramics, paintings and photographs were selected to form part of this special exhibition. Many of the items tell a unique and personal story which add an extra dimension to the Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds.

'Grand Designs' in the Cotswolds
Marjorie Crewe-Clements was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex in 1890. Her parents, James and Anne Cannon-Smith, who both came from the Cotswolds, retired to Charlton Kings in 1910. Marjorie was a talented artist and worked in the studio of the English Impressionist painter, Walter Sickert. She also taught at schools on the south coast and in Cheshire. After her mother's death in 1919 she put her interest in architecture and her drawing ability to good use by restoring derelict or near-derelict cottages and small houses in the Cotswolds. Her first project was Uplands Cottage at Birdlip and she met her future husband 'Billy' Crewe-Clements when she was working on Rose Cottage, Chedworth. One of her renovated cottages was bought by the American tycoon, Henry Ford and removed stone by stone to his museum in Michigan. She died in Temple Guiting in 1978.

Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum would be interested in finding out more about Marjorie Crewe-Clements and the homes she restored in time for this summer's exhibition, A Cotswold Home. Please contact Mary Greensted on 01242 237431 or by email: mary.greensted@cheltenham.gov.uk