Chelmsford & District National Trust Supporter Group

Report by Hanna Gillett

The weather gods listened to our pleas, the winds abated and the rain stopped in time for the first visit of the year by 40 members of C&D NT SG.

We were dropped off at the cricket club car park on the south side of the town of Abingdon. This meant a short walk over the bridge spanning River Thames, past historic houses, towards the Market Place, with about an hour of free time to stretch our legs. After a coffee at the Missing Bean Café, we wondered towards the Guildhall area of town. We were amused by a café members of the Town Council would throw buns from the roof of the County Hall to the crowds below. At King Charles’s Coronation 5000 buns were thrown and eagerly caught to either be consumed on the spot or carefully baked dry and preserved as an heirloom. Too soon it was time to return over the bridge to our coach and on to Kelmscott Manor.

The drop off point at Kelmscott was again a short walk from the house but gave us a chance to soak up the tranquil atmosphere of the village, ideal country cottages and gardens before we walked through a gate into the Manor grounds where we were treated to refreshments and an introductory talk.

In 1871 William Morris wanted a country retreat for his family while maintaining the apartment “above the shop” in London. Together with Dante Gabriel Rosetti he took out a joint tenancy and moved into the old farm house. A wrap around garden gave views of the garden and surrounding countryside from all the windows. You could see how this inspired some of Morris’s designs. The walled garden was laid out in “rooms” with lawns and full flower beds, an orchard, a croquet lawn and a further meadow with cowslips and blue bells, stretching down to the water called Radcot Cut.

In accordance with Morris’s ethos that “one should have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”, the rooms were simply furnished. There were comfortable armchairs, beds with drapes, decorative tiles around the fire place and patterned plates and jugs. William was interested in Persian art and I particularly liked two pierced metal incense burners in the form of peacocks. The previous owners of the Manor left four seventeenth century Dutch tapestries, sadly in poor condition, badly faded, worn and torn. William loved them and they inspired him to learn the technique himself.

In 2021 Kelmscott was awarded a grant of £4 million, some was spent on refurbishing Jane’s bedroom. A master craftsman was found who could hand block printed wallpaper as Morris & Co would have done and recreated the pomegranate wallpaper with great skill, which has been hung in Jane’s bedroom.

The grant also came in useful when a length of panelling found in a barn turned out to be the over mantle for the family sitting room. Removing many layers of paint revealed a dark green colour which William had mixed in 1882, and which in correspondence he described as “restful to the eye”. This Brunswick Green colour has been reapplied to the woodwork in the house, and does look restful. Work also involved conserving and opening up the attic/loft area in which Jenny and May played as children and William used as studio space.

William died in 1896 aged 62. ln 1912 Jane Morris bought Kelmscott for £4,000 but sadly died a year later while it was still being renovated. The house passed down to May, the second daughter, as the eldest daughter Jenny had epilepsy, so could not legally inherit the property.

William Morris called Kelmscott Manor his “Heaven on Earth”. By the end of our visit, l think, we all felt the same way.