The Arts & Crafts movement in the Cotswolds

In November 2023, Gill Woods spoke knowledgeably to The Badsey Society about the Arts and Crafts movement in the Cotswolds and why 150 Londoners moved from the East End to Chipping Campden in the early 1900s.  This talk had been postponed from October and a last-minute change of venue to the church was required, but this did not deter some 42 members from attending.  

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The movement started in the late 19th Century. It marked the beginning of a change in the value society placed on how things were made. It was a reaction to the damaging effects of industrialisation but also to the relatively low status of the decorative arts. Machine produced goods had damaging effects on social conditions and the quality of goods. Concerns initially rose in the 1850’s about the living conditions of the workers and the deterioration in taste (very ornate clutter!) and design. Britain was struggling to keep pace with the accelerating forces of change. There was overcrowding in cities (see pictures – poverty map of London, Frying Pan Alley, East End, London, Glasgow) bad housing, poor drainage, low wages, disease and 2 financial crises in the period 1870-1886.

Many of the people who became involved in the movement were influenced by the work of designer William Morris (above), who by the 1880’s had become an internationally renowned and commercially successful designer and manufacturer. He believed passionately in the importance of creating beautifully well-made objects that could be used in every day life, which were produced in a way that gave the makers themselves pleasure. He argued for the return of small-scale workshops. He wanted to free the working classes from a working day based on repetitive tasks and give them the pleasure of engaging in the creative process from beginning to end. Morris was famous for saying, “have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”.

Morris was influenced by John Ruskin (above) who believed there was a close alliance between urban deprivation and the general deterioration of social, moral and aesthetic values. So, the guiding principles of the movement were:

1. A love of nature
2. A love of English traditions – looking back to a pre-industrialised England
3. Working conditions should be healthy
4. Materials should be respected, as should the maker

A particular feature of the movement was that a large proportion of its leading figures had trained as architects. Their guiding principle was that houses should be convenient, comfortable and functional spaces which met the demands of the modern inhabitant and enhance their quality of life. This helped to develop the belief in the importance of designing objects for a total interior – a space where architecture, furniture, wall decoration etc. were a harmonious whole. As a result, most Arts & Crafts designers worked across a wide range of disciplines. Buildings were constructed using local materials and traditions. Buildings were always related to the site and the locality.

Many examples of Arts & Crafts buildings exist in the Cotswolds (see above). Some were renovations of existing buildings; some were completely new. A special type of interior evolved in the Cotswolds – it was pared down to the essentials, a reaction to the clutter and superfluous ornament of previous styles. Each object had to earn its place. Most renovations set an exemplary standard. The principles and practice of conservation which we follow today were developed as part of this movement. 

Along with houses, the Arts & Crafts movement also influenced the gardens. The following principles were followed:

1. The gardens were seen as additional living space
2. Natural handcrafted elements which respected regional traditions and crafts were used, such as wooden seating and willow supports
3. They drew on the landscape around – the house and garden had to work together. Local plants were used.
4. There was a strong architectural style which included hard landscaping, topiary and fast-growing hedges. Garden ‘rooms’ were often created.
5. Cottage garden plants were planted in naturalistic beds.

The countryside represented the vanishing rural idyll and an opportunity to live the simple life. The Cotswolds had been through a catastrophic economic depression – the wool trade had been lost to the industrialised north. A second blow came in the 1870’s with a farming crisis. Many people had left the area. There were empty workshops and cottages which were relatively cheap. The area was largely untouched by changes going on elsewhere. It was also dominated by wealthy landowners who were traditionally conservative in their approach to architecture.

Craft traditions had survived. There was a respect for workmanship. Everybody expected the best. Everybody knew who was responsible for which job. Nobody could get away with a “that’s good enough” attitude.

Who were these people? There were many. I selected these brothers and Gimson as they were amongst the earliest to move to the Cotswolds.

The Barnsley brothers, Ernest and Sidney, along with Ernest Gimson were originally architects. They moved to the Sapperton area (by Cirencester) in 1894. They wanted to pursue their business of furniture making and plasterwork. They took inspiration from the countryside. Furniture was simply constructed and lacked ornamentation. Ernest Barnsley was jolly, sociable, outgoing and full of fun, whereas his brother and Gimson were shy and awkward with strangers. Before he moved, Ernest and his wife were living in Barnt Green (an affluent village, just south of Birmingham) in a newly built home. Alice, his wife, was rather reluctant to move as she was exchanging a comfortable life (with easy access by train to the city) for an uncertain prospect in an isolated, rural setting. 

All 3 men were city born and bred but they were determined to live like country folk. They baked their own bread, brewed cider and sloe gin, and kept hens and goats. Alice continued to lack enthusiasm for the way of life, so she invited one of Gimson’s cousins, who grew up on a farm, to join them. Lucy Morley was very capable and organised daily life with efficiency. She married Sidney Barnsley.

After they exhibited at the Arts & Crafts Exhibition, their business grew, and they expanded. They built workshops and employed craftsmen, set up a smithy and started to produce high quality metalwork. They wanted to make their furniture affordable, but their standards were so high it was impossible. Sidney Barnsley was happy to stay as a one-man band. He was a solitary character who liked long walks and cold baths!

Gimson and Ernest Barnsley were happy to employ others to make their designs. They paid 8d an hour. The high emphasis on quality proved a shock to their employees. The Barnsleys and Gimson had private incomes, so they did not need to make a profit. Their customers were rich such as the owner of W.H. Smith and the Cadbury family. 

Their furniture used a lot of native wood such as oak and walnut. They used the technique of chamfering to lighten the furniture and add interest. They copied the wheelwright’s technique of through jointing. The wood was often left showing the marks of the tools. 

Sadly in 1905 the Gimson and the Barnsley partnership broke up. It was aggravated by tensions between Alice and Lucy, the 2 wives. It was never resolved. The 2 men were only able to continue their friendship outside their homes. Ernest Barnsley went back to architectural practice. He designed Rodmarton Manor which began in 1909 and only completed in 1929, three years after his death. Gimson continued and expanded his workforce. Pay was on average 5 or 10 shillings more than an agricultural labourer could get. Gimson died in 1919 and the Barnsley brothers both in 1926. They are all buried side by side in Sapperton churchyard. So, they were reunited in death!

Charles Robert Ashbee (known as CRA), son of a London businessman was an undergraduate at Cambridge when he encountered socialist reform movements which advocated ‘the simple life’. Following Cambridge, he trained as an architect and began to be influenced by Ruskin’s ideals. He set up a reading group in London which quickly evolved into a guild of handicraft. The work of the Guild involved many crafts. By the turn of the 20th Century Ashbee’s guild had developed into a thriving urban community – it was democratic and self-sustaining, producing furniture, carving, metalwork, jewellery and enamelling. The Guild ran lectures and evening classes in many subjects. It organised sports, folk singing, amateur dramatics, took members and families on holidays and day trips.

In 1901 the lease on the London property was coming to an end. CRA felt it would be better to move the Guild to the countryside. It had to be put to the vote. The result was 22 for and 11 against. CRA chose Chipping Campden because of the Silk Mill (for the workshops) and the cottages surrounding it were empty and cheap. What he didn’t realise was the reason for the vacant cottages – the locals had been evicted by the landlord (Lord Gainsborough) so that he could obtain higher rents from the incomers. It was not the start of a promising relationship between the Londoners and the locals. 

150 newcomers arrived in the spring of 1902. The population of Chipping Campden at that time was 1750. So, it was quite an increase. The local population was not interested in CRA’s utopian dreams of rural socialism. They thought the incomers had outlandish accents, dress and behaviour. Campden at that time was still ruled by the local landowners and clergy. The working man knew his place. The townspeople thus showed their disapproval by charging the incomers a higher price for goods. There was also some resentment due to the guildsmen having higher wages. They were earning 30-40 shillings a week, whereas farm workers only earned 11-12 shillings. But there was new business in the public houses and the shops and local builders had work with renovations and building. So, after a few years, most guildsmen made friends with local people and several married Campden girls.

CRA himself had some very difficult personal relationships with key people in Campden. He was a ‘marmite’ character – people either loved him or found him very aloof and forbidding. CRA and the Guild threatened a way of life in Campden. The headmaster of the Grammar School in the town, Mr. Osbourne, referred to them as ‘the Cockney Invasion’ and often made acerbic comments about CRA himself. Mr. Osbourne got his comeuppance a few years later when CRA was on the school’s board of governors. He was dismissed. CRA was often at odds with the local vicar, Thomas Carrington. Janet Ashbee, CRA’s wife, described the vicar as “a leaden-eyed, poppy-cheeked, vacuous, heavy dew-lapped vicar who brings a blight with him wherever he comes”.  Not a lady to mince her words! CRA distrusted Louis Dease (Lord Gainsborough’s agent) calling him “the worst liar in Campden” – maybe after he discovered the cottages weren’t so vacant after all?

The guildsmen worked in the Silk Mill – the ground floor housed the showroom and publishers, first floor the silversmiths, jewellers and enamellers, the second floor was for woodwork and the outhouse was the smithy.

Let’s consider some of the individual guildsmen. Some of them did like their new surroundings. George Hart said of Chipping Campden “the most wonderful of all the places we could have found” and “it was like walking into a medieval town – we expected everybody to be in Elizabethan costumes”. Alec Miller was a carver, modeller and sculptor. He read a book written by CRA and travelled from Glasgow to Campden. He loved the co-operative nature of the Guild. He stayed in Camden and became a J.P. He eventually emigrated to the USA. There were 2 blacksmiths – Bill Thornton and Charlie Downer. They made screens, fire irons, lamp fittings and garden gates. They worked together up until WW2 – apparently hurling insults at each other!

But some didn’t like their new abode and missed London. One would walk to the station every day to reassure himself it was still possible to return. Another one by the name of Herbert Osburn took on no.6 Gordon Cottages which was beside the Silk Mill. The hearth was too small to cook on, there was a yard rather than a garden and six outside toilets. They had left a flat with more privacy and internal plumbing. Mrs Osburn, on seeing her new accommodation burst into tears.

This is Walter Curtis who in 1908 was the longest serving guildsman. He joined the Guild in 1889 well before the move to Campden and was already a qualified cabinet maker when he joined. He and his wife Liza, moved into one of the cottages in the Lower High Street. Again, the housing was not as good as what they had left in London – more outside privies! Their children were initially bullied at school – they were told to “go back where you came from”. They did however settle and enjoyed living in Campden, but after the Guild broke up, they moved to Kent. They continued to make regular visits to the town and spent WW2 there – it was much safer than Kent! His granddaughter remembers Walter as a kind, gentle and thoughtful man.

The Guild was about much more than producing artefacts. It influenced other aspects of life. A school of Arts & Crafts was established in Campden. There were P.E. classes for men and cookery classes for women. There was a working man’s club, libraries and a sports club. 330 students attended a wide range of classes throughout the town. A bathing lake was constructed which was open to all. Productions of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays were staged. There were rambles and cycle rides in the evenings. 

Single guildsmen were housed in Braithwaite House. Will Hart, brother to the aforementioned George, was put in charge of this establishment and was known as ‘The Skipper’. It was the most radical outworking of the principles of the Arts & Crafts movement. However, this way of life was not to last for long. There were financial strains quite early on. The venture had high costs – the wages were good, the buildings and education programme needed to be paid for, and the entertainments were subsidised. There was no opportunity for other work in rural Gloucestershire – when bad times came there was no way to respond. The skills belonged to the city and Campden was too far from London. Some London firms started copying CRA’s designs and these were cheap copies. The Guild was thus liquidated in 1908. 

So, what happened to the guildsmen? 12 remained and continued working in the Silk Mill. Others returned to London – some of these went to work at Liberty’s, a CRA rival. Some went to Cadburys to make moulds. Others could not find work like Arthur Cameron and Tom Hewson, a silversmith, who took to drink. CRA moved on to other projects such as the Garden City movement and after WW1, he was involved with rebuilding Jerusalem. 

Some experts blame the failure of the venture on CRA himself, citing a lack of business skills and a fundamental lack of understanding. He was in love with an idea. He wanted to change the place to suit his vision of how it should be. He was not a countryman at heart but a dedicated Londoner who frequently caught the train to the capital, whereas Gimson, whose workshop lasted another 10 years, wanted to fit in and contribute to the gradual process of change. It was very telling when CRA commented, “what an extraordinary disregard for time that folk in the country have, ‘time is money’ seems never to come home to them”. CRA viewed Campden as a cultural desert waiting to be invigorated by the Guild. This wasn’t true. The band, the pool and technical education was all in hand before he arrived – he just spurred it on. 

So, in one sense the venture failed (the school of handicrafts closed down and the bathing lake was in a dilapidated state by 1911), but it did boost the local economy, it revived old festivals and traditions (Bonfire Night, Morris dancing) and introduced new ones (annual theatre productions and creating a craft tradition in the town). Some guildsmen kept in touch with CRA and remembered their time very favourably, saying that it gave them skills, experience and self-confidence.

In the late 1880s, two American artists ‘discovered’ Broadway and spent their summers there. They were Edwin Abbey and Frank Millet. Broadway at that time had no railway and was going through an agricultural depression. It was very quiet! They spent their time painting and inviting their friends along such as John Singer Sergeant (another painter) and Henry James (an author). Millet liked Broadway so much that he bought Russell House (bottom middle), where he lived and Abbotts Grange (top left) which he used as a painting studio. Henry James wrote an article for Harper’s Magazine which attracted more people from the USA. 

Another American to settle in the village was an actress by the name of Mary Anderson. She bought Court Farm (bottom right) and this became a meeting place for her friends. When the railway arrived in 1904, this brought in more tourists. By 1920 barely any building in Broadway had not been renovated but Arts & Craft ideals were adhered to, so damage to its architectural integrity was slight. 

One of the buildings to be renovated was The Lygon Arms. Sidney Bolton Russell bought the inn and turned it into a hotel. Gordon and his brother Dick boarded at Campden Grammar School so naturally they encountered a wide range of leading craftsmen who were living in the town. We know he met the Hart brothers, Will, the woodcarver and George, the silversmith. He also met Paul Woodroffe, a stained-glass artist and Fred Griggs, an architect and artist. After Gordon left school, he spent 6 years doing all kinds of work for his father, which included the workshop at Broadway, where men repaired furniture., mainly for the Lygon. Gordon, influenced by so many of the above craftsmen began experimenting and started designing pieces. After the Great War, Gordon, his father and his brother Don set up S.B. Russell and Sons, a furniture manufacturing business. The designs were close to Barnsleys’ and Gimson’s designs. The venture was financed by a developing antiques business. 

They opened a showroom in Broadway to mixed reviews. They “couldn’t understand why we refused to stain our furniture” Gordon said in later years. The company wanted to show off the grain in the wood and staining it would have made it less easy to see.

Gordon could see the innate problem with the Arts & Crafts movement. The goods could only be bought by people whose incomes often came from the use of machinery (which the Arts & Crafts purists abhorred). This insistence on handcrafted production wherever possible would lead to the movement’s downfall. Russell believed that handcrafted and machine made could be complementary. Gordon began designing for machine manufacture. The Broadway workshops began producing large numbers of chairs for schools, libraries and other institutions. The 1920’s saw Gordon produce thousands of designs for furniture, metal and glass.

In 1929 the business was badly hit by the financial crash. The demand for antiques in the USA disappeared, there were no wealthy tourists in the Lygon. They no longer concentrated on elaborate, single pieces made to order. Instead, they chose to focus on producing simple, high-quality furniture to contract order. The Broadway workshops became more mechanised. In 1930 a telephone call from Murphy wanted Russells to produce wooden cabinets for Murphy radios. This led to mass production on a new scale, and it saved the company during the lean 1930’s. In 1934 the workshop had 400 workers. Godon knew them all as he frequently toured and talked to the men. Eventually the Broadway site could not cope with the demand for radio cabinets, so production was moved to London. 

Gordon founded the Good Furnishing Group in the 1930’s and Russell furniture began to be sold in selected stores across England. The company still exists today but sadly the workshops in Broadway do not. In designing specifically for machine production, Gordon demonstrated that the transition from handicraft to mass production need not mean a fall in standards. High quality furniture could be accessible to ordinary people. 

What happened to the other people?

Edward Barnsley, son of Sidney, carried on his father’s workshop and also set up the Edward Barnsley Education Trust which not only trained apprentices to make high quality furniture, but also ensured financial security. Today the workshop still produces its furniture. 

But what became of the Silk Mill in Chipping Campden? Let’s go back to George Hart, the silversmith from the Guild. Janet Ashbee described him as, “a jolly fellow and great fun, but not over-burdened with brains”. George remained at the Silk Mill and continued to produce silverware. Some pieces were made to Gordon Russell’s designs and were sold at the Lygon Arms. Some pieces were sold at the Russell’s antique shop in Evesham. However, this closed when it was discovered that the manager had embezzled the takings and absconded!

In 1925 George was contemplating emigrating to New Zealand but 2 pieces he produced changed everything. He made a processional cross for Gloucester Cathedral which was used at the coronation of Elizabeth II. It was made of silver, ebony and enamel and was covered in semi-precious stones. It was over 9 foot high and weighed 35 pounds. The second piece which changed his fortune was the Royal Ascot Hunt Cup which he made in 1926, and it was seen as his finest piece. The two items made him famous, and work flowed in. His son eventually took over the business, followed by his grandson. The workshop still looks very similar to when it was part of the Guild.

Downstairs there is now a co-operatively run gallery which features work by all their members - artists, ceramicists, woodturners, glass makers, metal workers, photographers, sculptors, furniture makers and textile artisans. There are regular exhibitions and a gift shop offering original work to suit all budgets.
Continuing the Arts & Crafts principles in the 21st Century!

Bibliography

• Blakesley R.P. (2009), The Arts and Crafts Movement, Phaidon Press
• Crawford A. (2002), Arts and Crafts Walks in Broadway and Chipping Campden, Guild of Handicraft Trust
• Gordon C. (2009), Arts and Crafts Architecture, Phillimore
• Greensted M. (1993), The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds, Biddles
• Jones A. (2003), A Cotswolds Miscellany, Brewin Books
• Russell R. (2008), The Harts of Chipping Campden, Loose Chippings Books
• Warmington A. (2005), Campden – a new history, Vale Press

Acknowledgements

Thanks also to the Court Barn Museum, Chipping Campden and The Wilson Art Gallery, Cheltenham