Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds - Art and artefacts in the buildings they were designed for

Following the ideals of Pugin, amplified by Ruskin, the call for a return to a golden age of craftsmanship with respect for the individual became a moral as well as an aesthetic crusade in mid-century Britain. A number of idealistic artists, architects and thinkers found inspiration that was essentially medieval but went beyond the imitative aspect of the Gothic Revival.

William Morris and his collaborators and followers, now collectively known as the Arts and Crafts movement, reacted against the worst by-products of industrialisation, poverty and social injustice, and believed in a link between these ills and mass-manufactured, poorly designed goods and shoddy housing.

Ironically perhaps, the railways, the most omnipresent sign of industrialisation, opened up unspoilt Cotswolds villages as an escape from sordid city life and provided easy access to its commercial markets. The villages of Daneway and Sapperton were colonised by craft workers who shared their wealthy patrons’ respect for past styles and high standards of craftsmanship.

Inspired by Morris, their attitude towards historic buildings was based on conservation rather than ‘improvement’. Thus the past and the modern imperceptibly fuse at Owlpen Manor, while Rodmarton, begun as late as 1909, seems as if it has always been there.

Ernest Gimson and the Barnsleys, who built and furnished Rodmarton, were not alone: in 1902 C.R. Ashbee had moved the entire Guild of Handicraft, workers and their families, from East London to rural Chipping Campden.

Later exponents, like C.F. Voysey, turned towards a newer, more ascetic style. Perrycroft was Voysey’s first major commission and a project for which no expense was spared, however its deceptively simple style of design was borne out of earlier, less lavishly-funded work.