The Workshop - William Morris Gallery

Detailed image of a wood block used in printing

The Workshop

Discover the Morris & Co workshops at Merton Abbey

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Fighting for a Cause

Welcome to the workshop. Morris went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the quality of his products, insisting they were made by skilled craftsmen using the best possible materials. This gallery is inspired by the Morris & Co workshops at Merton Abbey. Here you can discover how the craftsmen and apprentices made the famous printed cottons, carpets, tapestries and stained glass.

Morris & Co embraced traditional techniques from around the world instead of following industrial manufacturing methods. Short films on display delve deeper into these techniques such as the use of natural dyes.

Morris’s designs were filled with birds, plants and animals. Younger visitors can practise weaving and designing their own pattern from nature in the workshop.

A weaving loom at William Morris Gallery. On display for visitors.

A weaving loom on display at William Morris Gallery.

Gallery highlights

Design for ‘Medway’ printed cotton, 1885

Design for ‘Medway’ printed cotton, 1885

‘St. Cecilia’ stained glass panel, c.1897

‘St. Cecilia’ stained glass panel, c.1897

'Wandle' printed cotton, 1884

'Wandle' printed cotton, 1884

Design for ‘Medway’ printed cotton, 1885

Morris created a series of designs in the 1880s with diagonal lines which were influenced by a seventeenth century Italian fabric that he had advised the Victoria and Albert Museum to acquire in 1883. ‘Medway’ is one of the designs from this series and, like many of the others, is named after a tributary of the river Thames. On this design, Morris coloured only enough of the pattern needed to demonstrate the different colours. The same pattern was printed as wallpaper under the name ‘Garden Tulip’.

‘St. Cecilia’ stained glass panel, c.1897

This stained glass panel was made in 1897 for 'The Hill' at Witley in Surrey, and was commissioned alongside another window titled ‘Flora’ by the then owner of the house, Mr. Edgar Horne. The commission for these windows is well recorded in the Morris & Co. Catalogue of Designs which names the glass painters as George Campfield, Walters and Wren. The original cartoon for this figure was drawn by Edward Burne-Jones and was first used at Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge in 1873. It was later reused at St. Nicholas, Halewood, Lancashire in 1881 and at Holy Trinity, Sloan Street, Chelsea from 1894 to 1895. During the early years of the Firm, Morris & Co. had a close association with 'The Hill' when it was first owned by Myles Birket Foster. The house contained several works by Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown. It also had many Morris & Co. stained glass windows including a series of seven panels designed by Burne-Jones illustrating Chaucer's 'Good Women', a series of roundels containing classical and Chaucerian heroines. Burne-Jones also designed a number of tile panels for the house which were made by Morris & Co. These included a set of tiles for a fireplace with the story of 'Cinderella' and another set with the story of 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Beauty and the Beast' for the bedrooms.

'Wandle' printed cotton, 1884

In 1883 William Morris began creating a series of patterns inspired by and named after tributaries of the River Thames. These complex flowing patterns are widely seen as some of his most appealing designs. This pattern, designed by Morris in 1884, is from that series and was named ‘Wandle’ after the river that flowed through Merton Abbey "to honour our helpful stream". Merton Abbey was formerly a Huguenot silk-weaving factory in suburban South London and had been at the centre of the British textile industry since the seventeenth century. Morris signed a lease for the seven-acre site in 1881, and Merton Abbey was an ideal site for many of The Firm’s traditional techniques. Before chemical bleaching was invented, cloths had to be lightened by soaking them and exposing them to sunlight. With its location on the river Wandle (a tributary of the Thames) and being surrounded by meadows, Merton Abbey proved resourceful. Its soft water proved essential for dyeing textiles and was a key reason for Morris settling on this site. In the search for his new factory, Morris had collected water from various sites which he had analysed to ensure it would be suitable to dye with. He was particularly shocked when a sample taken from pipes supplying water to Lambeth was declared unfit for human consumption by an eminent analyst. In contrast, the water at Merton Abbey proved perfect for all his requirements.

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