Comments on: At Emery Walker’s House

By: TerryR

TerryR — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 12:09:35 +0000

Nice photograph of a chair described as “by Ernest Barnsley” – but it’s not! It’s a well known design modified by the Scottish architect James MacLaren from a traditional design and made by the Herefordshire rural chairmaker, Philip Clissett. About 80 of his chairs are in the meeting hall of the Art Workers Guild in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, if anyone wants to compare. Ernest Gimson’s chairmaker, Edward Gardiner, produced an almost identical chair which is still made today by Lawrence Neal.

To learn more about Philip Clissett, and to see many more of his chairs, go to http://www.philipclissett.co.uk

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 18:19:29 +0000

Oscar Wilde was a smart fellow…that wallpaper is quite a bit “much”.

By: pauline taylor

pauline taylor — Sun, 14 May 2017 15:52:41 +0000

A very interesting insight into this house although I must admit that the décor is all much too ‘busy’ for my taste, but the views out across the river make a welcome break from all those patterns. I have to say that I think I would have agreed with Oscar Wilde !

By: Paul Rennie

Paul Rennie — Sun, 14 May 2017 12:20:59 +0000

I briefly rented the basement of Walker’s house in the early 1980s…It was the first time I’d lived in London. The deal was to pay rent and do odd jobs for the lady upstairs, sweeping leaves and cleaning the car and so on. There were some strange house rules too…

I remember that she once asked me to fix her electric cooker and handed me a screw driver…but she hadn’t unplugged the machine, and I was thrown back across the kitchen. That was a shock!
Luckily, I survived.

Back then, the house was even more a kind of shrine, and had a more-or-less complete set of Kelmscott Press books. A few hardy souls would visit and ask to see the books…and were allowed to look at them, but only from a distance. Looking, but not touching!
The books are now in Cheltenham Museum. There’s an account of the library in old copy of Matrix.

I didn’t stay long, but it was quite an experience.
As things turned out, I made my life as a design and print historian…

PS
Karen, my wife’s, family have also featured recently in SpitalfieldsLife…it’s uncanny!

By: Valerie-Jael

Valerie-Jael — Sun, 14 May 2017 07:26:10 +0000

A very interesting and well preserved house to visit, although I must confess that I would not like to live with all those patterns. Now I understand Oscar Wilde’s quote, ‘Either the wallpaper goes or I do’. Valerie

By: Geraldine Moyle

Geraldine Moyle — Sun, 14 May 2017 06:24:14 +0000

Little Wapping was the informal name of the 19th century riverside neighborhood in Hammersmith south of King Street, & between the banks of Hammersmith Creek to the west & Hammersmith Bridge to the east. From the 1830s onward, it became increasingly industrialized (most notably by a large lead mills) & dense with tenement housing in-filled between factories & workshops. “Little Wapping” was by way of being a pejorative nickname for the resulting slum district.

Here’s May Morris on Kelmscott House: “As in all “left-behind” neighborhoods on the skirts of a great city, our suburb was full of contrasts ~ squalor & desolation: sunny corners & sweet gardens. The way from the noisy high street [King Street] ~ the main road [Hampshire Hog Lane] of a poor over-crowded quarter between town & country ~ ended in sudden quiet & the sparkle & freshness of the water seen through tall elms in the bastion said to be part of Queen Catherine of Braganza’s building, when, after the death of Charles II, she lived in a house on the Upper Mall. In her day the gardens probably came down to the riverside, occupying the space now covered by the road. Doubtless she used our water-gate in all dignified seclusion; in our day ragged mites from the neighbouring riverside slum would tumble around, turning our garden-steps too into their playground, & generally, it must be said, rending the sweet air with their
“children’s voices,” till I, from a neighbouring room, have heard my poor father, enduring until the exact moment came when he could endure no longer, go out & beg them to give him a little peace & quiet & play elsewhere for a while.”