Homes to live in and to love: Building the Arts and Crafts dream

 ‘An Englishman’s home’, so the saying goes, ‘is his castle’, and ever since the days when castles were the sensible man’s choice the ability not just to buy but to commission a home of your own has been a marker of social and financial success. By longstanding tradition such houses were built as status symbols: grand edifices in whatever style the latest fashion might demand; conspicuous consumption writ large upon the land in ashlar and marble. From the very beginning the Arts & Crafts proposed a new way of doing things, extending William Morris’ golden rule - have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful - to the houses themselves. Integration rather than ostentation became the watchword: new houses which settled into their sites as if they had been part of the landscape since time immemorial, built wherever possible of locally available materials by a local workforce using traditional techniques. There was no ‘house style’; each commission had its own individual character, and architects went to extraordinary lengths to create homes which would not only shelter their inhabitants but also enhance their existence: from billeting themselves on their clients for weeks to learn how their daily lives worked to scanting their own fees to increase the budget for staff quarters, while fixtures, fittings and furniture were often designed specifically in the interests of a harmonious whole. “My house,” declared Arts & Crafts stalwart Gertrude Jekyll to the young Edwin Lutyens, “is to be built for me to live in and to love, not as an exposition of architectonic inutility.” Abashed, he redrew the plans for Munstead Wood in line with her instructions, and in doing so forged a partnership in home and garden design that has remained a gold standard to this day. Many of the houses and gardens created under the banner of the Arts & Crafts still survive, lived in and loved by generations. This Day School explores the revolution in attitudes and taste that led to their creation and the brilliant, dedicated and driven men and women responsible, from Morris’ own Red House in Bexleyheath to Lutyens’ fabulous Arts & Crafts castle on Lindisfarne

TIMETABLE FOR THE DAY

10.00-10.30 Welcome refreshments

10.30-11.30 – Lecture 1

11:30- 12.00 Refreshments

12:00-13:00 – Lecture 2

13:00-14:00 – Lunch

14:00-15:00 Lecture 3

15:00-15:30 Refreshments