The Perfectly Preserved Arts & Crafts Interior: Emery Walker’s House

We say it's pretty much the only intact Arts and Crafts interior left in London, and that's pretty much in full due to the work of Emery's daughter, Dorothy, and then her companion in her later life, Elizabeth de Haas, who worked after Emery died, and then Elizabeth after Dorothy died, to really preserve the house as it is, so it remains a kind of time capsule for that early 20th century period. They moved in in 1903, Emery lived here until he died in 1933, and we think that if he walked in today, there would be very little that he would think of that, of course. Welcome back to Artfully Crafted, my name is Alia Noor, I'm an interior designer based in London. This week, we're headed to Hammersmith to visit my favourite Arts and Crafts interior, you guessed it, Emery Walker's house. The reason I wanted to film there is because so many of the disciplines we have already featured on this channel are represented in the collection in the house. Things like embroidery, as we've seen with Laura Avedion and The Fabled Fred, plasterwork as we've seen with Geoffrey Preston, and lusterware as we've seen with Jonathan Shilswell-Jones, and many more, things like woodblock printed wallpaper, furniture making, and even illuminated manuscripts. So don't forget to hit the subscribe button, and let's get into it. Thank you so much Karen for making the time. Can you tell me first, so you're a curator at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, how big is the team? So it's quite small, there's three of us who work in the house, and then we have a team sort of expert trustees from different London institutions mostly, and then basically we live by our volunteers who come in and give tours of the house and help with maintaining it and maintaining the garden. For those in the audience who don't know who Emery Walker is, is that Emery Walker? I should say. Emery Walker, yeah. Could you, I mean, we could do a sort of like a whole lecture about him, but let's do a sort of, you know, short intro. Short intro, yeah. So Emery Walker was, he was born in 1851, and he came from quite a modest upbringing. He went to work quite early because he had to help to support his family, and sort of through a few different jobs he eventually settled on being an apprentice in a printer's, so an etching and engraving company. And through that he became sort of professionally very, very adept and very innovative with printing typography. He was particularly known for a method of making illustrations for books called photogravure, which was quite new at the time. And sort of through these professional ties he became, probably the most important part of his professional career was his contributions to the private press movement. So he helped set up the Kelmscott Press with his very good friend Willie Morris, of course, who lived just down the road in Hammersmith. He was very much sort of a professional advisor on that, not an official partner, but really helped with materials and techniques for Willie Morris, who wasn't an expert at the time. But it was my understanding that Willie Morris actually tried to make him an official partner, right? It was just Emery sort of being the, his typical sort of very humble kind of self, saying, no, no, I'll advise, but I don't need to be, sort of get the reward almost. I think he was trying to be smart, and then he was like, oh, I have a professional practice, I can't take this on. But he did end up doing a lot of work for his friend, I think, just because he is a generous person. I think what makes him so interesting is because he was that type of person, he's in like all these different organizations that are very much at the core of the arts and crafts movement as we think of it now. So Art Workers Guild, he also worked with Willie Morris on the Hammersmith Socialist League, Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the whole roster. Yes. So he's really showing up everywhere you look. And we talk about him having a real talent for friendship, is what we say, because everywhere he went, he seemed to make friends and help them out, and then, you know, really keep them for the rest of his life. Yeah. And that's as we'll see throughout the house and the objects that are present here, I think that theme of friendship and, you know, him being generous to friends and them being generous in return, that's something that we'll be touching on. I think we'll have lots of opportunities to do that. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be a real who's who of everyone. You know, through his associations to all of these different groups of the arts and crafts movement, he is a very significant man. But the reason why I also wanted to do this video is because the house itself is very significant, right? We say it's pretty much the only intact arts and crafts interior left in London, and that's pretty much in full due to the work of Emery's daughter, Dorothy, and then her companion in her later life, Elizabeth DeHaas, who worked after Emery died and then Elizabeth after Dorothy died to really preserve the house as it is, so it remains a kind of time capsule for that early 20th century period. They moved in in 1903, Emery lived here until he died in 1933, and we think that if he walked in today, there would be very little that he would think is out of place. And I think I read an article about this house and kind of comparing it to other arts and crafts houses that we have available for the public to visit today, and some of the comparisons that's with Stanton House and other emblematic arts and crafts houses, but the arguments in the article is made that actually a lot of these houses are almost kind of very pure arts and crafts, right? They're recreations where people have sort of brought in lots of arts and crafts examples, which was, from our point of view, it seems sort of true. Actually, this house is probably a better representation, right? Yeah, I think because we do have some lovely arts and craft pieces by the Barnsley brothers, like the Cotswolds Arts and Crafts Group, by Philip Webb himself as well, but we do have a lot of pieces that are antique for the time. So we have Regency pieces, we have lots of Victorian pieces, things that were brought in, gifted, inherited, to make a sort of eclectic mix, which I think was really part of the style. And I think we see that a lot in all of the key players in the arts and crafts movements. They actually all had this eclectic mix, including, say, Chinese export, green and white porcelain and things like that, which I think when we look back, I think we almost forget that that eclecticism is really at the core of it. So we're very, very lucky to be able to see it in the flesh here. One of the things that I really wanted to talk about is the metalwork that you have in the house. And we've got a beautiful example of this next to us. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, so we are lucky enough to have actually three very similar arts and crafts brasswork sponsors like that. We have another one in this room and then one upstairs. This one in particular, we think, is by Norman Jusin, and then one of the others is, we believe, by Ernest Jimson. I say we believe because they actually worked together. Their Norman Jusin started learning metalwork under Ernest Jimson, and they actually shared the same metalworker who would, they would design it and he would produce it for them. His name was Alfred Bucknell, sort of local to the Cotswolds area where they were working. So this one has the fritillary design here with the two candle holders. We have one that's been converted into electricity, which is a little, you know, but it does some intervention. A little intervention, but you know, we do need some light in this room. And one of them has sort of a drip tray here, but otherwise they are very similar looking. And all kind of, yeah, with this kind of floral inspiration for different flowers for each of them. Yeah. And I think that's a great example already of this ethos of artistic collaboration and the arts and crafts movements where people are learning from one another, you have people designing, people making, etc. and it's quite a sort of seamless collaboration, isn't it? It makes it a little frustrating for our volunteers to remember who did what in some cases, but I think honestly, I like the spirit of collaboration. I like that we can't always say this person did this and start to finish. There was always sort of a team involved. And whilst we're in this little corner, I think it's the perfect time to talk about the textile that's on the wall behind you, and then also the wallpaper that's behind me. So this is Willow by Morrison Co, right? And then this is a wall hanging that, am I right in thinking that was hanging in William Morris's house? Yes. At one point? Yeah. So this wall hanging to start there is called Bird, and it was originally designed for William Morris's house, Kelmscott House, it hung in the drawing room there. And it did later go into commercial production. But this specific one does come from William Morris's house. And it was a gift, we believe, originally to Philip Webb, and then it came here because a lot of Philip Webb's possessions came to Emory Walker after he died. Yeah, he was the main beneficiary as well, right? Yes, exactly. Which again, strong sort of friendship links. Yes, we are very glad that they were very good friends, because there are some absolutely beautiful pieces here that came directly from Philip Webb. And then you mentioned the wallpaper, which is Willow. So this one was designed in 1874. So it's a sort of earlier version of the Willow Bough that is very, very familiar to us. And what I really like about this specific design and colorway is that it's the slightly more elaborate one, at the time it took three different blocks rather than two to have the background, which has the little bubbles of berries, whatever they look like. And they kind of do just fill the negative space a little bit more. And I think I love how it looks and the blue colorway. I just think it seems counterintuitive, but even though it's busier, I feel like it sort of is more peaceful on the eye, especially with all the other patterns. This design, was this ever put into production? This one was from 1874. There was a patent from it, and blue was the only colorway it was offered in. But then it was later replaced in 1887 with Willow Bough, which is sort of the more familiar, we often see in the sort of green on the clean ground colorway. And something that you pointed out to me as well is that actually, and that kind of shows the spirit of economy that Emery Walker had, and perhaps other people decorating their houses is that you, this approach to you only get the amount of wallpaper that you need, and you don't necessarily need to wallpaper every inch of the wall. So there's actually a corner of the room that's not wallpapered. Yes. So basically everywhere under this wall hanging here, if we were to move it out of the way, it's just plain plastic because it's hand-blocked wallpaper. It's expensive. It's still expensive now if you want to get it. So, you know, you're not going to do it somewhere where you're never going to see it. Yeah. Because you have this lovely wall hanging that came from your friend. I just posted this little fragment of illuminated manuscript. And I was wondering if you could tell me about that. Yeah. So this piece, what it is, is an illuminated version of William Morris's crest with his motto, which is, Tant que je prie, French for, as much as I can, which is the most William Morris thing you can think of. But what I really love about it is that it was actually a gift from Ethel Sandal, who was a manuscript illuminator, a miniaturist. She's very, very talented, not very well known these days, but she was also a very close friend of Emery Walker. He sort of acted as a bit of a mentor to her when she was starting her career. He helped her sort of make connections with collectors of manuscripts and just other people in the circle. And they were such good friends that she ended up naming her first son after him, actually, which is quite lovely. And it leaves behind this just beautiful piece and quite a few others that were just sort of tokens of friendship. Whilst we're in this corner of the room, I just wanted to touch on this sort of eclectic layering that we have of all these different patterns. I think from an interior design perspective, even, this is quite interesting, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It definitely is not something that I think comes naturally to us these days to sort of layer. You know, I can't even count, but I think we have at least four different, five different Morris & Co. patterns working here. I think what makes it work very well is just, after a while, the dizziness kind of tricks the eye and there's very similar colour schemes. And I don't know, I think that's what makes it work together for me. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's, as you say, so we've got the curtains on one pattern, then we've got the chair upholstery, got the wallpaper, we've got birds on the other side of the room. So it's all of these things. And I think, yeah, there's more as well, because we have all of these sort of beautiful embroidered coverlets, etc. But as you say, the colour palette, it's this sort of dark blues and greens and with touches of red, but it is quite muted on these colours and kind of, yeah, working together very, very well. And it's not the brightest room, as you can tell, and it would have been candlelit for most of the time when people were living here. Probably a few more candles than we have now. But I think it doesn't sound like it should work. But I do think the warmth of the lighting that would have been in here would really help to pull it together as well. Yeah. And I love as well that even the woodwork has been painted in the same, you know, it's picking out one of the colours from the wallpaper. And so, again, it's enhancing that overall cohesiveness. And then we should say as well, you know, when we talk about the history of collecting and we talked early on about there being sort of different generations of antiques there, you know, Emery Walker wasn't just gathering examples of arts and crafts, objets d'art and furniture, right? This room has points of, we've got Georgian, is this a Georgian? Georgian, yeah. And sort of different eras. And I think in a way, if you're being sort of eclectic and mixing different patterns, I think to have that sort of gentle mix of furniture from different eras also works quite well, doesn't it? Yeah, I think definitely. So we talked about the close friendship with William Morris and actually this chair is a representation of that, right? This was a gift from William Morris, I believe, upon his death, right? Yeah. To Emery Walker. So it was a gift from Mrs. Morris or Jane Morris upon William Morris's death to Emery Walker as a sort of testament to how close their friendship was. By the end of William's life, they were seeing each other pretty much every day. It is a Jacobian chair that was in the library at Kelmscott House with some beautiful details in the inlaid wood in the chair itself. But sort of our star piece, we have to say here, is this little cushion that is on it. So this was done by Mae Morris. So William Morris's daughter is a very talented embroiderer and designer. This tapestry cushion was given to Emery Walker to go on this chair. And we do have the lovely detail in the corner that says M-M-P-E-W. It also makes me wonder because, again, the colour palette is very similar to everything else we have in the room. So I'm sort of thinking, you know, was Mae Morris even sort of bearing in mind where it was going to go? She did live next door. So it's possible she was like, well, I better match there. Who knows? I'd like to think that that's what happened. It is funny to think though, because this would have come 1896, William Morris dies. It would have come into their collection when they weren't even living in this house yet. And then if we think about when other things came, the tapestry came and the wallpaper came in the 1920s when they purchased the house. So it is funny to think of how they're slowly building all these things that they own into what seems like such a cohesive room, but really is sort of the work of decades. But I think it also goes to show, you know, when you're sort of grouping things, you know, if you have sort of rooms with different colour palettes, I mean, as we'll see through the house, each room has a very different colour palette. And in a way, it kind of means if you kind of were to call this sort of green and blue room, every time you sort of purchase something that had this kind of colourway, you'd say, well, I know exactly where it's going to go, it's going to go in this room. And then again, as we'll see upstairs, we've got the drawing room is sort of more white and blue, so much lighter colours, you would think, okay, this, you know, a particular item could go there. And then upstairs is a more greens and pinks. And so it kind of gives you enough variety that you can actually be quite playful in your accumulation of objects without sort of disrupting the decorative scheme. So on the table, we have a beautiful facsimile of one of the manuscripts published by Kelmscott Press, is that right? Yes, so this is a facsimile of the Kelmscott Chaucer, which is really the sort of masterpiece of the Kelmscott Press, started quite soon before William Morris died and was still being wrapped up printing after he died. It's truly just one of the most beautiful books you can imagine. It's got all these woodcuts, I think about 80 woodcuts by Edward Byrne Jones. And then all sort of the design around it is very pure William Morris. It's very similar to a lot of the familiar designs to us. Why we have it out, even though it is a facsimile, is it is just such an important part of Emery's story of how he contributed to the Kelmscott Press, helping with developing fonts and type settings, helping even with sourcing ink and paper. And I think that did really sort of spark him after William Morris died to want to set up his own press. And he went into partnership with another Hammersmith neighbour, T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, to set up Doves Press. Who actually lived here before Emery Walker did, and then Emery Walker moved in when he moved out, right? And then another person who worked for the Doves Press moved into Emery's old house. It's just everyone's switching houses. I wish it still worked that way. And so how does the style of the Doves Press, you know, how different is it from the Kelmscott It really could not be more different. So you see this, it's very medieval, it's very ornate. Some people find it hard to read, whereas the Doves Press is a very simple font, a lot plainer. It's based off sort of a classical font from old 15th century manuscripts, rather than a gothic font. And it's very plain. So it's not a lot of decoration on the pages. And, you know, a lot of the sort of decoration comes from contrasting colors. So there's like a red capital. The most famous example is the Doves Bible that they produced, and it has a sort of capital letter, red I, for in the beginning, that goes all the way down the entire first page. So it's very distinctive, but a much, much more modern looking, I would say, style of printing. Sort of much more pared back. Yes, yeah. Kind of the purist version, which I always feel like is very appropriate for Emery Walker. Yeah, and definitely his partner, T.J. Coffin Sanderson, really liked that idea too, of letting the book sort of speak for itself. So we've got a couple of beautiful pieces of furniture here. One is a plant's chest and one is a bookcase. Am I right in thinking they're designed by Philip Webb? Is it for Morrison Poe? Yes. So technically, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Morrison Co., just the company sort of changed his name to Partners earlier, and then they sort of consolidate the name of it. But what's extra special about both these pieces is they were actually owned by Philip Webb. So we believe that he had them in his architectural offices. So when we sort of open this plant's chest, there's very specific thin drawers for laying out the sort of architectural plans that he would have been working on. This sort of dark coloring to it, is that a stain or is that a particular way of working the wood? It's a stain, and then this one here is stained in olive green. So it's not ebonized as you might think it is, but it is just a stain on the wood. So I believe it's stained oak. And again, this is part of the gift to Emery Walker, right? So we start to think what furniture they could have possibly had before Philip Webb died, because these are huge pieces that really do define the room. You can't be here and not notice the ceramics that are on display, not just on the plant's chest, but above the bookcase. There's even the conservatory next door is just chock-a-block full of ceramics, isn't it? So what really strikes me is the variety of collecting there. Yeah, so we are absolutely spoiled when it comes to ceramics, because we have among our collection some very, very high quality arts and crafts pieces. So we have, for example, two De Morgan tiles here, a pool pottery tile there. Upstairs we have some very beautiful pieces by Alfred and Louise Powell, as well as Grace Barnsley. So some absolutely stunning pieces. We also have a lot of pieces that speak more to collection while traveling. So we have lots of Spanish and North African pottery, earthenware. Emery Walker took a lot of trips actually with the artwork. And I read somewhere that Dorothy, his daughter, came along with him on a number of these trips. So they were sort of acquiring art as they went. Yeah, exactly. They're the quality that you're not going to see it in a museum, but I think it does speak to a very sort of normal style of collecting. If you're on a trip somewhere where they make beautiful pottery, you're going to go to a sort of craft market and see what you can find. And I like that we sort of have those and then in among them the just absolute top quality arts and crafts. Yeah, I think you're right. There's something about it that's really lovely because it's this sort of like attainable collecting. And we do have some other plasterwork friezes in the conservatory and then in our sort of reception room, also by Norman Juessen. So it really speaks to, we talked about Norman Juessen doing metalwork. A lot of these arts and crafts designers are working across just such a variety of mediums, which I think is really cool to see represented in the same collection. Yeah, absolutely. I think nowadays we sort of, you know, we kind of think that people have to have one lane and sort of stick to it. But you see that, as you say, a lot in the arts and crafts movement where William Morris, as we know, he's designing across so many different kind of disciplines. Philip Webb, who's an architect, is also designing furniture. It's just kind of part and parcel. And then, as you say, Norman Juessen, plasterwork, metalwork. I mean, why limit yourself? You know, it's, you know, so long as you have this sort of curiosity to learn about the material that you're designing it. And I think there's no sort of limitations really on what you can do. Yeah, exactly. So we've just come up the stairs to our first floor in the drawing room. What I loved actually coming up the stairs, so we touched on the colour in the dining room and how the woodwork was painted to sort of pick out one of the colours from the wallpaper. What I noticed afterwards is actually the second colour from the wallpaper has also been used for the ceiling, which is wonderful. And then we see the same thing happen in the corridor as we're coming up the stairs. We've got the wonderful willow bough pattern and the sort of two greens have been used for the woodwork and for the ceiling. So again, it's that wonderful sort of cohesion. And we're now in the drawing room, which is much lighter. I think would have probably been the room you spent the most time in. So you wanted to put it on the floor with the beautiful view of the river and a little bit more light coming through. Yeah, and the pattern itself is called wallflower, is that right? Wallflower, yes. So it is an acanthus leaf. So a lot of people think it's called acanthus, but it's named for the very little flowers that are sort of the details. And it's in a blue colourway, which is actually quite rare. We think it might have been a special order at the time. Not for Emery Walker. We think he might have got some leftover rolls. But the blue and white here is not the common colourway that you would see for this particular design. Talking about the colour cohesion and all the woodwork in here and the ceiling, everything is painted in white. But then a lot of the textiles, again, we've got a variety of different patterns, but all of them have kind of blue as the primary colour and then the same thing for all the rugs, right? Yeah, and we do have an absolutely beautiful blue and white rug that we're standing on in the tulip and lily pattern for Morris & Co. So woven, I think up in Yorkshire, but it's extra special because it was originally in Count Scott House and then moved to Count Scott Manor, so to William Morris's house. And we actually think rather than a gift, which most things have come here through gifts, we think Dorothy actually might have bought it at auction because there was an auction of everything from Count Scott Manor in 1938 after she passed away. So another extra little piece here. Yeah, and special mention as well for the two chairs that we're standing behind. We were discussing this, so this is a Windsor chair. Yeah. In terms of provenance, you think it might be Philip Webb, but we're not sure? We think it belonged to Philip Webb. We don't know who made it or anything. I don't think we think Philip Webb made it himself. It's a Windsor chair, but probably did come in that same gift from Philip Webb. And then quite a special one, I think. Well, I always think, because it reminds me of the artwork, so this is a Ecclesiastes design, right? Yeah, so Ecclesiastes chair is kind of what we call this type of chair because it was designed by a man named Philip Clisset. He also made them commercially. He made a lot, and the Art Workers Guild bought many of them, enough to be all the seating in one of the meeting rooms, I think. Yeah, and the Great Hall, exactly. We have, gosh, it must be hundreds that we have in there, so all Clisset chairs. So we think it could have been purchased from Philip Clisset, but then another thing we know is that Ernest Jimson, who we've talked about already, another member of the Cotswold Arts and Crafts, he did learn how to make this chair from Philip Clisset, and he did produce them himself as well. And we do know Ernest Jimson was a friend, and we have other items. So it's either or, definitely Clisset style, but who actually had hands on it is a little bit up for debate. So we're standing in front of two really beautiful, but also important pieces of furniture from the Barnsley family in the Cotswolds, very much part of the arts and crafts movements in the Cotswolds. This is first generation Sidney Barnsley, and then this is the second generation with Edward Barnsley. Yeah, so this is a secretaire designed by Sidney Barnsley, you got it exactly right. His brother was Ernest, and his son is Edward, so it just gets very confused. But yeah, it's got this beautiful sort of checkered design here, blackered wood, and then you see in here this sort of pigeonhole design for use. We have all these very unattractive sort of sticky notes in there, just because there used to be archival material in here, and so to keep track of exactly where everything went, we have a little numbering system. Oh yeah, because I'm numbered. Yeah, exactly. So just a little bit inside information there. And what's lovely about this is that it perfectly matches that little bookshelf that you have next to you, which as you said is his son designed that. It's made out of walnut, and we think it was actually made out of a walnut tree that fell at Daneway House, which was the summer home that the Walkers had from 1922 until 1933, and was also very much a sort of centre of arts and crafts in the Cotswolds. Another thing that everyone notices is there's sort of step feet, which is very, very characteristic of this exact style. So if you want to know that you're looking at a Cotswold, arts and crafts, look for it. Yeah, the base, and then I love that actually that little kind of moulding detail kind of mimics that. Mimics that, yeah. A beautiful armchair designed by Philip Webb, as well as the two cabinets that are either side of the fireplace, and then also some glassware. Yes, so can you talk me through? This piece here was Philip Webb designed for Morris & Co. I think the original design dates back to 1878 or so. We think this particular piece of furniture might have been a little later, and of course the coverings are modern. They're sort of added later, which is why they're so beautiful and vibrant still. But they are Morris & Co. patterns. But they are Morris & Co. patterns, so very much in keeping with the rest of the room. And then we have the bookcases either side with the glazed door on both, and then inside there's some beautiful Philip Webb glassware. In particular, we're very happy to have these sort of wine glasses with the little bobbles on them, which are very iconic. They're very modern looking. They're designed... It's so funny you say that. I was going to say they're very medievalist. Oh really? I think they look like they could have been made just very recently. But they are 1870s, designed for Jane Morris and William Morris's wedding. So we've got quite a lot of Alfred Powell and Louis Powell, right? They were a couple, and they collaborated a lot on ceramics, right? And then at the front there, we've got another Barnsley, Grace Barnsley. Grace Barnsley, yep. Were all of these, were they made for Emery Walker? So a lot of these pieces, the Powell pieces, sort of closer to us on the table, were specifically designed for Emery Walker. Hopefully we know what these ones were, because there's EW sort of intertwined into the design on all these jugs. And then what these ones show is actually houses that belonged or were rented by Emery Walker and his family. So Daneway House is the one on this beautiful large charger here. So it's kind of come up in talking about the Cotswolds already, but it's near Saperton, and it was used as a sort of showroom. For the Barnsley brothers and that sort of group of Cotswolds arts and crafts makers. But Emery actually lived there for about 10 years as well. And this one here was a housewarming gift from Alfred Powell to Emery Walker. And then this small plate here shows actually this house seen from the river. So you see some of the lovely wisteria, not in bloom, but wisteria that's climbing the back and the entrance to the conservatory. And some little details of sort of water birds that you would see along the river. So a heron and a duck. So a very lovely little piece for this house as well. So we haven't really talked about it because we're so in the arts and crafts, but it is actually a Georgian house. And at that time, you would have mostly gotten out to this part of London, which was barely part of London at the time, by river. And then the entrance was a sort of walkway from the steps further down the terrace. And you would have come in from the riverside and then up into the house. You know, as you mentioned, it used to be kind of the countryside in the Georgian times, and it was a sort of very sort of upper middle class kind of area. But by the time of the sort of changemakers and designers of art and crafts movements are moving in, it's been absorbed into London and it's become slightly less fashionable, which is why they can afford it. It was very industrial. I mean, there's still a brewery, I think, but there was a few and various factories and the air wasn't very clean out here anymore. So it just wasn't. It had become sort of unfashionable. And so they were able to, you know, show around these houses and things like that. So you've talked about these pieces sort of being very personalised to Emery Walker with his initials and the houses that he lived in. The Grace Barnsley pieces, they're more sort of based on repeat patterns, right? Yeah, so we do have a full set of this sort of teacup and saucer that we have here and a few plates as well. I'm assuming they would have had the complete set back in the day, as well as this lovely teapot. These are still very beautiful pieces. What a lot of both the Powells and then Grace Barnsley did was they would take blanks made by, for example, Wedgwood, that was a big collaborator of theirs, and they would hand paint on them. And it was really sort of trying to make a renaissance in hand-painted ceramics, which had sort of fallen out of fashion. They weren't being produced by the sort of major potteries at that time. And I think why I pulled out the Grace Barnsley is I just really love the very delicate detail, the sort of reds and blues in those. And I think it just shows how much talent really went into doing that. I think what is talked about with like Louise Powell and I think Grace Barnsley as well, is they were also very interested in different styles of ceramics from various different parts of the world, looking at sort of Delft or Persian or Spanish or Izmit, like all over the places. And then you can see that they pull in different sort of influences into their own production, which I think then makes it so interesting when then we have examples from different places here to sort of complete that collection as well. We are standing in front of another Philip Webb, Pam's chest. We don't actually think that these bookcases were Philip Webb, but we do know our catalogue says that they were ordered specifically for Emery Walker. So we imagine this was sort of part of the designing of the room. They had the plant's chest in this lovely colour of wood and sort of had similar ones added here. And we can see there's a lot of books, I mean, as you would expect for someone who is working in the printing press, but there aren't any copies from the Dove's Press, right? So Emery Walker obviously had his own versions of the Dove's Press books. He had Kelmscott presses. He had collected even before he started to get into the private press movement because he truly just did love books his entire life. So this house did originally have an amazing collection of private press books. But in 1999, when the last person who lived here, Elizabeth de Haas, passed away, she had made an arrangement. The house needed an endowment in order to keep going as a museum and so she actually sold that collection. It is now in Cheltenham at the Wilson. So you can still go see it. But it is no longer here. But we are glad to have the house in exchange for those. And we have, in recent years, through some donations and loans and some acquisitions, have managed to acquire a few Dove's Press books back into our hands. We are in Dorothy's bedroom and I think, is it appropriate to say like the tone is a bit girlier? It does feel that way. I mean, it's pink ceiling and daisies on the wall. It feels a little girlish. And I love how we still have that same use of a variety of different motifs. But, you know, with the wallpaper being different to the curtains, for example, but always reusing the same colour palette for cohesion, right? Exactly, yeah. But there's something quite special about Daisy. Yeah, so Daisy was the very first wallpaper design that William Morris designed for Morris & Co. So it is a sort of classic and it does look very nice in this room, I think. It's not my favourite usually, but I think it fits this space really, really well. This cushion I really love, not just because it's a very pretty design, but I think it's very interesting. So this design was done by Mae Morris, but we think that she didn't actually do the stitching. So one of the things she did when she was in charge of the embroidery department at Morris & Co., so her father's company, was that she designed these kits. So you could actually buy an embroidery design in like three different levels of completion. So you could buy the full embroidery, but you could also buy it either with just instructions and some outlining or with some guiding stitches done. So we think that this was probably bought as a set and then that Dorothy, or even possibly her mother, both of whom are very talented embroiderers in their own right, would have embroidered the cushion themselves. Yeah, it's a wonderful piece. And again, it has two tones of pink in it, it has the green. I mean, it's kind of perfect to have it in this setting, isn't it? There's actually quite a lot of North African kind of textiles, but also, I mean, there's a saddle. This is a camel saddle. I was trying to think, yeah, what animal would this be for? It is definitely a unique flavor of this room, even though there's elements other places. But one thing is that Dorothy did go to North Africa a few times, once even with her mother as sort of a trip for her health, to go somewhere with a warmer climate. And you can tell that it clearly had an influence on her taste here and on the things that she wanted to collect. Yeah, so we have some wonderful rugs, and then there's also a chest at the end of the bed that's kind of covered in tapestries, right? To anyone who's sort of wondering how an eclectic interior can look very cohesive, this house, again and again, it's something that we've discussed. There's a beautiful example of it, right? One thing that's fun to look in is that we actually have hidden in here some different curtains, sort of tucked away as they would have been. So basically, when the last person who lived here, Elizabeth, when she passed away, it was the summer. So all the summer curtains that they would have had stayed on the windows, and those are the patterns that are still there. And then the winter curtains that they would have put up have been kept in the wardrobe here. So presumably, they would have changed these out for the seasons. Right, so just another way in which people were sort of finding ways of keeping warmer in these drafty houses. You talked earlier about the layering of the rugs, and then actually changing out the curtains to sort of heavier wool curtains would have also helped with making sure heat wasn't evaporating from the windows. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's really something that I think we've kind of lost. And in my drafty Victorian flat, I feel like we should bring it back. Totally. We mentioned the May Morris cushion, and you mentioned that it was a May Morris design, the knots embroidered by her. This was definitely, at least mostly, stitched by May Morris. She very well could have had help, but it was definitely a very personal design and something that she did quite especially for definitely a token of friendship. So this was given to Emery Walker's wife, who, like I said, was quite ill for most of her life and didn't live here. But she was definitely part of the family, part of the friend group, because this is quite a very elaborate and very generous gift to give to her. And then it did end up having sort of an afterlife from there. It was placed on her coffin when she died, and then on Emery's, then Dorothy's, and then Elizabeth's. So it's really a family heirloom piece, as well as just being a really beautiful example of embroidery. And one kind of has to pause and think about the number of hours that was spent on this, right, because I'm sure May Morris would have been quite an efficient embroiderer, but even then, what a wonderful piece. And as you say, to have that kind of family history to it, and the fact that they used it as part of the procession, it's really clearly meant a lot to them, that they included it in this way. One last quirky little detail, which I almost hadn't noticed, and I guess that's the whole point. It means they did a good job, yeah. Is that we've got some pipes here that are, or is it wiring? It's wiring, yeah. So behind here is the old electricity wiring to sort of the old light switches, which you can see around the room. And what you can see is that the wallpaper is papered over top of it, which is just fun because it hides it in the wall. So for a design reason, but it's also very interesting for our purposes, because now we know that the wallpaper went in after the electricity, which is just good for us to know for the history of the house. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time, Karen. Thank you for coming. Lovely to show you around. I think it's like my fifth visit maybe to the house now. And you're still noticing new things. Exactly. So I think it really goes to show that, you know, there's just so much to discover here. And yeah, I don't think, I mean, I'm obviously a little bit biased because I love the arts and crafts period, but I feel like one doesn't really get tired of seeing this interior. There's always more to learn. So yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. I've linked the website to Emery Walker's House below. They reopen in March and you can already book your tickets to visit them. However, note that they only have capacity for 40 visitors a week. So do book early to avoid disappointment. Thank you for watching. Please help us spread the word. Like, share and subscribe. See you next week. You can open it if you would like to. It's one of the easier ones. I was going to say, it heard me say it's an easier one to open and I was like, I'm going to be difficult.