William Morris’s ‘heaven on earth’ rural retreat reopens following a £6million renovation

Morris, a towering figure in the Arts and Crafts movement, was a pioneering designer, author, architectural conservationist and social reformer, who rented Kelmscott Manor for 25 years until his death in 1896 aged 62. 

But the property needed extensive remedial work, including measures to stop water getting through the brickwork.

Morris’s daughter May Morris, herself an influential embroideress and designer, lived in the manor full-time after his death and was very involved in village life, starting the first Oxfordshire branch of the Women's Institute.

She kept the house unchanged almost as a shrine to her father and since 1962 it has been owned by an educational charity, the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Property manager Gavin Williams said: “The roof was rotten and the weight of it was pushing down the partitions into the floor. The house was in danger of imploding.”

Building work by Biggs Construction was made possible by a £4.3million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, generous donations and £1.3million from the Kelmscott Manor: Past Present & Future campaign, which continues to raise funds.

The renovation started in November 2019 but was interrupted by Covid.

“It all came to a grinding halt,” said Mr Wiliams. “We hoped to reopen on the 150th anniversary of Morris coming to Kelmscott, which was last year, but it was delayed so instead we concentrated on presenting the house as we wanted it.”

Martin Levy, a leading expert on Morris and chairman of the Kelmscott campaign, told the Observer: “Using inventories, photographs and watercolours, the curator Kathy Haslam has done archaeological research into how the house looked while Morris was there.

"They’ve been able to place furniture and objects where they were originally. So you get a feeling of a house that’s lived in rather than a cold, museum-like shrine.

“The curator has really brought Morris’s ‘heaven on earth’ to life. I’ve been bowled over by the richness of the colours in the rooms.”

The manor was built around 1600 for a working farmer, and Morris loved its unpretentious architecture as his ethos was that one should "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." 

He described the village of Kelmscott, near Lechlade, as “heaven on earth” and is buried in the churchyard.

He profoundly influenced interior decoration with his tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows in designs still produced today.

And many of his most popular, enduring designs drew on the flora and fauna in the surrounding landscape.

His classic furnishing textile Strawberry Thief, which decorates the Old Hall inside, was inspired by watching thrushes steal strawberries outside the manor.

Willows growing around the house shaped his famous Willow Bough pattern.

Morris's utopian novel News from Nowhere, published in 1890, tells the story of a man who falls asleep in London and wakes up in a house not unlike Kelmscott and its surroundings.

It was also at Kelmscott that a complex love affair unfolded.

Morris had initially leased the manor with his friend, the leading Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was then romantically involved with Morris’s wife, Jane, also an embroiderer and artist’s model.

Among the paintings reinstated at Kelmscott is The Blue Silk Dress, 1868, Rossetti’s best known portrait of Jane Morris.

Mr Williams said: “Jane was having an affair with William’s friend and that might be one reason they looked for a place in the countryside. They wanted that to go on outside London and away from prying eyes.”

The starting point for the furnishing and decoration was May Morris’s memorandum of 1926 attached to her will with written and photographic evidence.

An archivist from Sanderson, which now owns the Morris & Co archives, matched the wallpaper designs which were hand-printed, using the original blocks.

Colour analysts also peeled back layers of paint to rediscover the original schemes.

The Green Room is now in its original dark Brunswick green, a colour that Morris found “restful to the eyes”.

William’s room, with his bed that his one of his poems sewed to the top by his daughter, has his Lily wallpaper. 

As well as being a campaigning socialist, Morris believed that art, like education, should be for everyone and the renovation includes a new thatched learning barn which will be open to local schools and community groups on Mondays and Tuesdays.

There is also a tea room and an electric shuttle to the car park while a new exhibition space will be opening soon.

Kelmscott Manor reopens on Friday April 1.

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