Comments on: At Kelmscott House

By: Gunnar

Gunnar — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 12:55:22 +0000

Lovely article and photographs, thank you so much! I assume that many of the interior photos are of Kelmscott House as it looked when Morris lived there, not now? Have the current owners made any attempt to keep at least some of the rooms as they were?

By: Marcelle Garner

Marcelle Garner — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 06:12:04 +0000

Thank so much, for all your very descriptive writings .I am now living in Australia & at 84 yrs ,my general health is in decline, so I am now unable to visit the country of my birth .I do look forward to your articles .My forefathers ,went to London from the West Country , for a better life & ended up in the East End slums as many others did.

By: Delia Folkard

Delia Folkard — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 11:10:36 +0000

Thanks GA. yet more inspiration for my London visits. What drew my attention immediately was the third paper pattern shown which I believe is the same one as the cover on Mr.Pussys chair. By coincidence, this was also the paper pattern used on one floors of the Museum in Chester which we recently visited and I commented on it to my husband. It is one of my favourite Willaim Morris prints as it’s not too fussy but now I will always associate this pattern with Mr.P.

By: Peter Holford

Peter Holford — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 23:21:58 +0000

Going to school next door to Kelmscott House I was totally unaware of what it represented. There were various houses such as this including Ravenscourt House that formed part of our school. The whole riverside area with the houses, gardens and backdrop of Hammersmith Bridge was a great environment that took me a while to appreciate. After the age of 16, the Dove became an added bonus. Our school may have been the only one in the country to have a subway under the A4 extension that was built in the 1950s. This preserved the integrity of the school from the river to King Street – obviously Kelmscott House and perhaps other properties suffered at this point. I became aware of William Morris and Kelmscott after leaving school and had a vague desire to go there some day. So thank you for this blog, GA. It has just added to my knowledge of the area that meant so much to me back in the 1960s.

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 14:07:08 +0000

One thing that I, as an old letterpress printer noticed was a 20th century hand ink roller on the ink slab of the old Albion press. In the early days of printing the type was inked by a pair of pelt balls, rollers had not yet been invented.
Gary

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:21:50 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, thanks for sharing your tour of Kelmscott House. Morris certainly was a versatile figure in London’s cultural life in the Victorian Age. It is good of the present owners to welcome Morris aficionados on occasion.

If I recall correctly, Morris designed beautiful illustrations for Yeats’s poetry which are featured in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. I just love Morris’s designs.

By: Jim McDermott

Jim McDermott — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 09:12:31 +0000

I agree with Bailey it’s such a lovely stretch of the river, and an exquisite house. A pity that the area’s become one of London’s pollution hot-spots, thanks to the internal combustion thingy.

By: Leana Pooley

Leana Pooley — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 08:25:01 +0000

Very interesting and lovely pictures as usual. It’s an odd situation. The William Morris Society let the upper floors of Kelmscott House to a tenant who took advantage of then newly-introduced Right to Buy which left the Society with just the basement. I wonder what William Morris would have thought of that.

By: John Barrett

John Barrett — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 08:09:35 +0000

Today we are entering the house of William Morris some of his tapestry designs shown are exquisite all around the house. I did like his Strawberry Thief design so bold. As a artist/designer and author he needed space, here at Kelmscott House he got it. Not for living so much, for all his creative work it was the centre of his world with book output aplenty. There would have been many tryouts and first pulls-offs on his Albion printing press leading to many titles. The house shown here is pristine !no this was a working environment for a genius I am sure the floor would have been littered with debris from old tryouts, ink smudge sheets etc. GA did us proud today with a good expose thanks for that. Poet John. – PS I am sure there is still lots of William’s presence in this house. As he said “I want to get mumbo jumbo out of this world” So wallpaper man has left us his design stock to prove he has lots of ingenuity and clarity for all time.

By: Bailey Jones

Bailey Jones — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 08:01:15 +0000

I love this stretch of the Thames. How lovely to gain access to this important home. There is a little museum at the side of the house open to the public.