ACMS EVENTS -2010
The following lectures were presented during 2010
Janet Waymark – Thomas Mawson and his designs for gardens 26 January
Alan Crawford – Ruskin and the Arts and Crafts Movement: Four stories and three endings 23 February
Daryl Bennett & Colin Pill – Newlyn Arts and Crafts copper 31 March
David Taylor – Vernon Lushington 29 September
Daryl Bennett – Shapland and Petter of Barnstaple Ltd 28 October
Ian Hamerton – CFA Voysey’s individual approach to decorative design 23 November
The following visits were made during 2010
Cheltenham Art Gallery – Emery Walker: Man of Letters – 25 February
Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture – Japantastic – 16 March
Leighton House Museum and Linley Sambourne House – 20 April
Annual General Meeting – 19 May
Goddards with Martin Lutyens – 17 June
Tour of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire & Herefordshire – 7 – 9 July
Visit to gardens at The Quadrangle and Munstead Orchard – 10 August
All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney, Herts – 4 September
Visit to Kelmscott House, Emery Walker House and Art Workers Guild – 30 September
Christmas lunch at Horsley Towers – 5th December
LECTURES
Thomas Mawson and his designs for gardens Janet Waymark
Tuesday 26th January 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
Burton Manor, Neston by Thomas Mawson. 1906.
Dr Janet Waymark will lecture on Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933), the most sought-after garden and landscape architect of his time. He designed over 200 gardens in Britain, and many parks, and was commissioned by the crowned heads of Europe; but this did not stop him from working on small gardens in his favourite location — the Lake District. He remained an Arts and Crafts man all his life, with stone masons and carpenters contributing to the features which created the typical Mawson landscapes of balustrading, steps, pools and fountains, patterned paving trellises, pavilions and so on. The sloping sites of the Lake District lent themselves to such features, though his designs could be adapted to suit flatter land. He worked with his sons, and the firm was successful after his death, until the Second World War changed ideas on the Arts and Crafts approach to the garden.
Ruskin and the Arts and Crafts Movement: Four stories and three endings Alan Crawford
Tuesday 23 February 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
The Arts and Crafts movement flourished between about 1880 and 1920, just when appreciation of Ruskin was at its widest. But it is difficult to document the movement’s assumed indebtedness to him. Alan Crawford examines in depth a selection of its practitioners, including William Morris and JD Sedding and finds that disagreements with Ruskin are as common as discipleship.
Alan Crawford is a freelance writer specialising in the history of architecture and decorative arts in England circa 1900. For the past few years he has been working full-time on the Court Barn Museum in Chipping Campden, which displays work by CR Ashbee and his associates and which Society members visited, accompanied by Alan, during a tour of the north Cotswolds in 2008.
Newlyn Arts and Crafts copper Darryl Bennett and Colin Pill
Wednesday 31 March 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
Darryl Bennett and Colin Pill, authors of Newlyn Copper: Arts and Crafts Copper Work in Newlyn will give a joint presentation exploring the Newlyn Industrial Class, which created repoussé copper work from 1890 onwards. This small craft industry, much aided by the Newlyn School of painters and by local philanthropy, created distinctive copperwork with designs of nature, fish, the sea shore and of heroic days at sea. From 1895 Newlyn copper became known and appreciated in London, praised in The Studio reviews but remained affordable and much respected by local people. Though increasing in popularity, dating and attribution of Newlyn work is still largely intuitive but recent research has provided some vital clues which will be discussed with reference to examples of Newlyn work.
Daryl Bennett, is a Sociologist by profession and Cohn Pill is a Chartered Landscape Architect; both are keen researchers of the British Arts and Crafts Movement.
Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, friend of William Morris and father of “Mrs Dalloway” David Taylor
Wednesday 29th September 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
Although he was a friend and colleague to many famous artists, authors and activists, the lawyer and positivist, Vernon Lushington (1832—1912) remains virtually unknown today. This lecture by David Taylor will draw upon previously unavailable materials from the Lushington archive to shed light on the interesting and influential figure who arranged the first meeting between Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and who visited with William and Jane Morris at Kelmscott Manor. Taylor will also discuss the connection between the Lushingtons and the Stephen family and the inspiration for the title character of Virginia Woolf‘s novel Mrs Dalloway (1925).
Historian, writer, and lecturer David Taylor is a research student at Roehampton University, London. A fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he has published on the history of his hometown, Cobham, Surrey, which was also the home of the Lushington family. Vernon Lushington is the subject of Taylor’s doctoral research.
Margaret Lushington Massingberd (d.1906)
Shapland and Petter of Barnstaple Ltd: Arts and Crafts furniture 1890 to 1915 Daryl Bennett
Thursday 28th October 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
Established in 1865, the Shapland and Petter partnership developed a creative and successful business, the Raleigh Cabinet works which maintained a commanding position in the design, manufacturing and marketing of ‘artistic furniture’ from 1890 to the first world war. A Heritage Lottery project in 2002 helped to establish the history of the company and develop an archive from which attribution of Shapland and Petter pieces can be verified. This evidence base may well have increased confidence amongst collectors, and explain in some measure its growing popularity. The talk will explore and illustrate the designs, and techniques of construction which define the Shapland and Petter style.
The lecture will be given by Daryl Bennett a keen amateur historian of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. A sociologist by profession, he has worked to establish the evidence base for attribution of furniture and metalwork from the period 1888 to 1914. In addition to the Shapland and Petter research, working with Colin Pill he has completed a book and a series of exhibitions on the Newlyn Industrial Class.
“What you can remember is your own, what you sketch you steal” – exploring CFA Voysey’s individual approach to decorative design Ian Hamerton
Tuesday 23rd November 2010
at the Onslow Village Hall
Always overshadowed, and understandably so, by his contribution to architecture, Voysey’s decorative designs for two and three-dimensional objects including furniture, graphic designs, wallpapers, textiles and calligraphy will be the focus of a lecture by Ian Hamerton, the Society’s Chairman.
Voysey textile. Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
A Senior Lecturer in Organic Polymer Chemistry at the University of Surrey, Dr Ian Hamerton has a passion for the Arts and Crafts Movement. He has collected and researched different examples of the genre and lived for a time in a lodge designed by CFA Voysey. He was the driving force behind and edited the first work on designer and architect, William Arthur Smith Benson (1854-1924), Ian is the Chairman of the Society for the Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey and the President of the newly-formed CFA Voysey Society and has lectured widely on these topics. He is currently engaged in research for his latest book project, dealing with Voysey’s decorative designs.
VISITS AND EVENTS
Visit to the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum with exhibition viewing: Emery Walker: Man of Letters
Thursday 25 February 2010 08:30 – 18:00
Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum holds one of the finest collections of Arts and Crafts Movement material in the country. The Cotswolds became the main rural centre for the Arts and Crafts, and Cheltenham’s internationally recognised collection showcases the craftsmanship and design rooted in the Cotswolds from the 1860s to the present day.
The exhibition Emery Walker: Man of Letters explores a history of lettering through the eyes of printer and book lover Emery Walker (1851-1933). From the origins of typography via the Gutenberg Bible, William Caxton, William Mon is, and influential small presses, we shall see how these have influenced contemporary typefaces.
Doves Press Bible 1903-5.
The material on display combines a selection of letters, books and archive material to highlight Walker’s influence on the great names of the Arts and Crafts Movement and his role in the 19th-century renaissance of typography and book production. Cheltenham Museum acquired Emery Walker’s library in 1990 and taking inspiration from the library, Illustration and Graphic students from the University of Gloucestershire demonstrate how his legacy lives on through the power of type.
We shall have a lecture by Kirsty Hartsiotis, Curator Decorative Arts and Designated Collections, about the Museum’s collection from the Arts and Crafts period and a further introductory talk about Emery Walker with the opportunity to view both the Emery Walker: Man of Letters exhibition and the Arts and Crafts Gallery with its display of furniture and objects by leading designers and makers: William Morris, CFA Voysey, Charles Robert Ashbee, Ernest Gimson, Michael Cardew and Gordon Russell amongst many others.
We shall travelling by coach, departing from Onslow Village Hall car park, Guildford at 08:30 and returning at approximately 18:00.
Japantastic: Japanese inspired patterns for British homes, 1880-1930 exhibition at The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture
Tuesday 16 March 2010 14:00 – 17:00
MoDa houses one of the most important and comprehensive collections of late nineteenth and twentieth century decorative design for the home. Opened in 2000, the purpose-built museum at Middlesex University is a significant resource for scholars and design professionals and those interested in the history of design for the home. The collection includes designs for wallpaper and textiles dating from the 1870s to 1960s – many the work of the renowned Silver Studio.
Silver Studio cushion cover panel. 1904. V&A.
The focus for our visit is the current temporary exhibition Japantastic: Japanese inspired patterns for British homes, 1880-1930. In the 1870s and 80s, Britain experienced a craze for all things Japanese. Japanese art and design was seen as exciting and exotic by Europeans, because it was so different to Western culture, offering a whole new way of looking at and representing the world. Arthur Silver was a British designer of wallpapers and textiles who established his company, the Silver Studio, in 1880. He and his colleagues were avid collectors of Japanese source material. They incorporated Japanese ideas into their designs, while ensuring that they appealed to the mass market. This exhibition looks at how the Silver Studio adapted Japanese between about 1880 and 1930. The resulting designs are not straightforwardly ‘Japanese’ but are the result of a cross-cultural fertilisation of design ideas. The exhibition features some of the many wonderful Japanese and Japanese-inspired objects from the Silver Studio collection, including textiles, wallpapers and original Japanese katagami or stencils.
We shall have an introductory talk by Assistant Curator Zoë Brealey. There will be time to tour the galleries displaying the permanent exhibition, Exploring Interiors: Decoration of the Home 1900-1960 and we shall also have the opportunity, in small groups, to examine objects from the Museum’s archive in the Study Room with Zoë Brealey.
Leighton House Museum and Linley Sambourne House
Tuesday 20 April 2010 11:30 – 16:00
A day out in London to visit two remarkable buildings, with the services of an official guide.
In the morning we shall be visiting Leighton House Museum the former studio-house of the great Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). Located on the edge of London’s Holland Park, the house is one of the most extraordinary buildings of the nineteenth century. The Arab Hall is the centrepiece of the house. Designed to display Leighton’s priceless collection of over 1000 Islamic tiles, the interior evokes a compelling vision of the Orient. The opulence of the Arab Hall continues through the other richly decorated interiors with gilded ceilings and walls lined with stunning peacock blue tiles by the ceramic artist William De Morgan. On the first floor is Leighton’s grand painting studio, also the venue for Leighton’s celebrated musical evenings. Leighton was at the very centre of the London art world and many of the leading figures of the day were welcomed into his extraordinary home. Leighton House is currently being refurbished, reopening in April 2010; this will be one of the first chances to see the extensive work to restore the house to its original spectacular appearance, recreating Leighton’s private ‘Palace of Art’ as it appeared at the time of his death.
The afternoon visit is to Linley Sambourne House, 18 Stafford Terrace, a unique example of a late Victorian townhouse. Home to the cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne and his family from 1874, it survives with its furniture and fittings intact. When young Sambourne moved there with his new wife they opted to furnish their home in the modish aesthetic and artistic style of the period. Stained glass windows, fancy Oriental porcelain, dark patterned wallpaper, rich rugs, grand brass beds and ebonised wardrobes are just some of the Victorian artefacts adorning the high-ceilinged rooms of this property. It’s a bit of a jumble — a heady mixture of clutter and styles that really does typify Victorian decor.
Lutyens Study day at Goddards, Abinger Common, Surrey
Thursday 17th June 2010
From Country House to Viceroy’s House
The Lutyens Trust have once again kindly allowed the Society access to Goddards during their summer week at the house. Sir Edwin Lutyens designed Goddards for Sir Frederick Mirrielees, in 1898-1900, as a place where ‘Ladies of Small Means’ might rest and enjoy the wonderful courtyard garden planted by Gertrude Jekyll. Goddards was given to the Lutyens Trust in 1991 and has been expertly restored by the Landmark Trust for holiday lettings. The Lutyens Trust archive is held in the Study-Library. The day will feature a lecture previously given in New Delhi: From Country House to Viceroy’s House
Viceroy’s House, Delhi
Our speaker is Martin Lutyens, who will explore in his lecture the influences of Lutyens’ earlier work on the designs for New Delhi and the ways in which working in India influenced his subsequent commissions. Martin Lutyens is Great-nephew of Sir Edwin Lutyens, OM. Born in India, after National service in UK and Germany (Coldstream Guards) his business career was mainly with a large, international management consulting firm. Martin is currently Chairman of The Lutyens Trust, Trustee of Glyndebourne, and Member of Development Board of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
After lunch there will be an opportunity to explore Goddards house and garden with a guided tour led by Claire Hill of the Lutyens Trust. We also plan to venture outside Goddards to explore Abinger Common to look at the exterior of Goddards Cottage, examine St James’ Well and view St James Church; dating from Norman times it is a good example of Surrey vernacular. Also of interest are gravestones of former owners of Goddards and the War Memorial that was designed by Lutyens.
Three Shires Tour
Wednesday 7th to Friday 9th July 2010
The Society has planned for this summer a tour, centred on Malvern, that will allow members of the Society to appreciate the Arts and Crafts heritage of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire at a variety of houses, churches and gardens with a roll call of names such as Norman Shaw, CFA Voysey, CR Ashbee, WR Lethaby, Henry Payne, A Randall Wells and Henry Woodyer.
We shall see several examples of work by Voysey, including, by kind permission of the owners, one of his early designs at Perrycroft with its beautiful garden restored after historical research.
As the tour takes in Dymock country an evening lecture by Roy Palmer on the Dymock poets, Edward Thomas and Robert Frost amongst them, will set the scene for our travels and we shall see an exhibition about the poets in St Mary’s Church, Dymock.
At Madresfield Court, the ancestral home of the Lygon family, Earls Beauchamp, PC Hardwick was the architect responsible for the Victorian alterations to the original moated Tudor manor. The library is a stunning example of decoration by Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft and the wonderful Chapel was commissioned from the Birmingham School of artists and craftsmen in 1902. Evelyn Waugh modelled Brideshead Revisited on the house and family.
An architectural tour of Malvern, led by local expert and Victorian Society member, Richard Manning will encompass several churches demonstrating the work of Walter Tapper, GF Bodley and others. At Brockhampton, Lethaby’s significant Work, the thatched All Saints Church is furnished with work of fellow craftsmen of the period. Here, Randall Wells acted as clerk of works and subsequently completed his own design, the Church of St Edward the Confessor at Kempley; also in the itinerary. We shall spend an afternoon exploring the Church of the Holy Innocents and the associated parsonage, lodge and schoolhouse created by Woodyer at Highnam to a commission by Thomas Gambier Parry, who personally executed the glowing, coloured frescos in the Church. Gambier Parry’s great grandson, Tom Fenton will be our guide.
The event will start at 1pm on the 7th July and finish at about 5pm on the July. We shall stay for two nights, 7th and 8th July, at The Cottage in the Wood Hotel, a family-run, three star hotel with two AA restaurant rosettes. Rooms have been reserved in The Pinnacles building.
Gertrude Jekyll’s hidden Munstead, Surrey
Tuesday 10th August 2010 14:00 – 17:00
a Surrey invention worth a lot of study – Pevsner
Gertrude Jekyll, ‘Artist, Gardener, Craftswoman’, is famous for the garden that she created at on 15 acres of sandy heath at Munstead Wood and her innovative planting schemes and use of colour in the flower borders continue to influence gardeners and garden design in the 21st century.
After Miss Jekyll’s death the property was sold and divided. This event return to two properties, last visited in 2004, with an opportunity to see the progress made in restoring the original planting at The Quadrangle. Here by kind permission of the owner, Gail Naughton we shall view both the gardens and interior of the house originally comprising stables, potting sheds, a bam and Loft, mostly dating from 1909. Then moving next door, with kind permission of Gordon and Karen Bames, we shall visit both the garden and interior of Munstead Orchard, built by Lutyens in 1899-9 for Miss Jekyll’s head gardener, Albert Zumbach. The Thunder House, a triangular belvedere where Jekyll could sit and watch thunderstorms, stands within the garden wall.
Although not part of the tour, those unfamiliar with this area might like to see the Church of St. John, Busbridge by Gilbert Scott RA. Burne-Jones designed the stained glass windows and work by Lutyens includes the rood and chancel screen, war memorial and Jekyll family tombs and gravestone. Nearby in Godalming, is the local Museum, which has an exhibition display about Lutyens and Jekyll.
Annual General Meeting and lecture
Wednesday 19 May 2010
At the Tilford Institute
The fourteenth Annual General Meeting of Members of the Society for the Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey, will be held in the Lutyens Hall at the Tilford Institute. It is hoped that you will be able to attend and contribute to the future plans of the Society.
Four Council members retire this year, three of whom have indicated their willingness to stand for re-election. We would invite members to consider joining the Council or the various sub-committees as fresh ideas and additional skills are always welcome. There are specific roles and tasks available for any members interested in participating in the running of the Society, such as Membership Secretary, Minutes Secretary and Newsletter Editor and the Honorary Secretary would be pleased if you would like to discuss with her the possibilities and ways in which you might become involved.
Nominations for election of members of the Council should be signed by the proposer, and seconder who should also be members of the Society, and should be signed by the nominee signifying his/her willingness to serve if elected. Nominations should be returned to the Honorary Secretary by 14th May. The Chairman may invite nominations from the floor at the Annual General Meeting in the event of there being insufficient nominations.
Women Bookbinders
Following the AGM proceedings, there will be a short account by Society member Marianne Tidcombe of hand bookbinding during the period of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Between 1880 and 1920 many hundreds of women who wanted a career or a pastime shunned the more feminine arts of painting and needlework to take up a craft traditionally dominated by men. The lecture traces the influence of William Morris and his friend TJ Cobden-Sanderson on the work of Sarah Prideaux, Katharine Adams, and others, including the ‘cubist’ bindings of Sybil Pye.
Dr Marianne Tidcombe is a bibliographer who has written and lectured widely in the U.K. and America. Her books on Cobden-Sanderson, The Doves Bindery and The Doves Press, and Women Bookbinders were published by the British Library. Her next book is on the life and work of Katharine Adams.
Architect in a dressing gown – All Saints Pastoral centre, London Colney, Herts
Saturday 4th September 2010 11:00 – 15:30
Jan Ward is a long-standing member of the Society whose thorough research into the work of architect Leonard Aloysius Scott Stokes (1858-1925) is the subject of her book, The Leonard Stokes Directory: Architect in a Dressing Gown and the focus of this event based at the former All Saints Convent, Grade II* listed and now known as All Saints Pastoral Centre.
Jan’s interest in Leonard Stokes was kindled many years ago when, as a young planning technician for the local authority, she visited Littleshaw – the house Stokes built for himself at Woldingham, high up on the North Downs of Surrey – to put up a site notice. In writing the book she has travelled the country photographing his buildings that still exist and the sites of some that don’t. His more famous buildings – in addition to Littleshaw, which is heralded by many as a fine example of Arts and Crafts architecture – include St Clare’s Church at Liverpool, additions to Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Downside School, Somerset together with Minterne House for Lord Digby in Dorset. All Saints Convent is hailed by many as being one of his finest buildings.
The event will feature an illustrated lecture, Architect in a dressing gown, to be given by Jan in the morning followed, after lunch, by a guided tour of All Saints Convent, designed by Stokes in 1899 for the Society of All Saints Sisters of the Poor. We shall view the main buildings with the three-story entrance tower with figured stone frieze of the nativity, the cloistered quadrangle and the Chapel finally begun in 1927 by Sir Ninian Comper and completed by his son, Sebastian Comper. The Sisters stayed at the Convent until 1973 after which date Cardinal Heenan purchased it for use as a Pastoral Centre. Copies of Jan’s book (privately published in May 2009) will be available for sale and for signature by the author.
Before returning home you may like to make an independent visit to Shaw’s Corner at Ayot St Lawrence, near Welwyn, a 1902 Arts and Crafts house set in a quintessentially English garden and home to writer George Bernard Shaw for over 40 years.
Kelmscott House, Emery Walker House & The Art Workers Guild
Thursday 30th September 2010 11:00 – 17:00
We shall be visiting No 7 Hammersmith Terrace, where the Georgian exterior hides a secret — the decoration and furnishings preserved as they were in the lifetime of the printer Emery Walker (1851- 1933), a great friend and mentor to William Morris and Kelmscott House at 26 Upper Mall, the London home of William Morris from April 1879 to his death in October 1896. Now a privately owned Georgian mansion, we will view the part of the house occupied by the William Morris Society. For our visit, the Curator will select items from the collection which are not normally on display. Nearby, Morris began his “adventure in printing” with his private press, the Kelmscott Press, which he started in 1891 at 16 Upper Mall.
We will then have lunch at an old pub by the River Thames, before continuing by underground to The Art Workers Guild at 6 Queen Square where Society member David Birch will kindly give an introductory talk and guided tour. The AWG was founded in the 1890s by five young architects from Norman Shaw’s office – Lethaby, Prior and Newton amongst them – to promote the ‘unity of all the arts’, denying the distinction between fine and applied art. The Guild purchased the Georgian building in 1914 and the rear part was reconstructed as a meeting hall, designed by F.W. Troup and inaugurated in 1914. It is furnished with rush-seated chairs to a pattern originally made in Herefordshire in the 1880s by Philip Clisset, and afterwards replicated by Ernest Gimson and his successors. Current members uphold long-established traditions of workmanship and a desire to contribute to the community; they conduct meetings in robes designed by the architect CFA Voysey.
Christmas lunch at Horsley Towers
Sunday 5th December 2010 12:30 – 16:30
A new event for your diary, a Christmas social lunch which will feature an illustrated presentation of the year’s visits including Leighton House, Madresfield Court, Munstead, Kelmscott House etc, as well as a preview of what is planned for 2011, a pictorial quiz (on Arts and Crafts related to the year) and a raffle. The venue for our lunch will be Horsley Towers in Horsley Park.
In 1840 the 1st Earl of Lovelace, son-in-law of Lord Byron, acquired the East Horsley Estate and moved his home from nearby Ockham Park to East Horsley Place. Over the next 40 years he proceeded to embellish the Sir Charles Barry house with fantastic towers, a great hall, cloisters and a chapel to create a Rhenish Gothic folly, which he suitable renamed Horsley Towers. He then transformed the previously nondescript village of East Horsley into a model estate using the same very idiosyncratic flint and polychrome brick style. Surrey County Council designated East Horsley, a conservation area in July 1973.
Horsley Towers will create the magic of Christmas with a sparkling atmosphere and a delicious three-course lunch with a glass of wine. There will be choice of menu suitable for vegetarians. We will also be able to tour the cloisters and the chapel.