Morris Gallery has star quality (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Morris Gallery has star quality

9:36am Thursday 2nd December 2004

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Simon Totten takes a new look at an old museum and discovers the genius of William Morris who is as relevant today as he was in the 19th century

IN his book Britain's Best Museums and Galleries: From the Greatest Collections to the Smallest Curiosities, author Mark Fisher, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, gave Walthamstow's William Morris Gallery a one-star rating along with the Roman baths in Bath, the capital's Cabinet War Rooms and the Eden project in Devon.

And as you enter the first room of the gallery you may agree with Mr Fisher. It is dimly lit and I suppose on first sight, it is rather unappealing. It's hardly a modern, shiny, interactive, hands-on museum with flashing buttons.

It's more like visiting an eccentric old aunt who hasn't drawn the curtains for a quarter of a century. But if you take a closer look and realise the lack of lighting is necessary to preserve the many treasures devoted to the extraordinarily talented William Morris, you'll be surprised by what you find.

If you were to rate this museum on the strength of how much you can learn about Morris, a poet, author, designer, craftsman, revolutionary socialist and champion of the environment, then you'd probably award it as many stars as you'd find in your nearest galaxy.

As you first enter this grand old building of the only museum in the world dedicated to his life and work, opened in 1950 by Prime Minister and local MP Clement Attlee, you can't help noticing the intricate panelling and plasterwork, the spectacular carved oak staircase and the carpets and furniture covers with the distinctive Morris designs on them. Firstly there is a history of the Morris family in black and white portraits. There are finely detailed drawings of Morris's birthplace Elm House and his second home Woodford Hall in Essex. Marlborough College was the school attended by Morris who had ambitions to become an architect but having to make exact drawings of Gothic details soon dampened his enthusiasm for architectural practice.

On one wall there is a selection of his wallpaper designs. Though it wouldn't make it onto one of those property programmes on television with its stylish designs which are repeatedly described as contemporary, the display will however make you feel like walking through a wood on a bright sunny day while admiring the flowers and listening to the birds. Morris's love of nature shines through here and he remained passionate throughout his life about the area and campaigned vigorously for the preservation of Epping Forest.

Morris was never interested in a literal imitation of nature but used natural forms to make each pattern suggest something beyond itself, qualities which he called meaning and imagination in pattern design. All his designs were bounded by a firm outline which he believed prevented a wall of vagueness.

There is something magical about stained glass windows, they are like paintings that seem to come alive when light shines through them. The ones here have distinctive medieval glass figures and narrative scenes composed in broad areas of colour contained in bold graphic outlines. They are simple with a lot of naturalistic detail and pre-Raphaelite in inspiration.

Morris's tile designs are equally eye-catching. They feature birds and foliage as well as pen and ink drawings of country landscapes. Though the 17 tiles from the fairytale Cinderella look like very dated rough copies made from a fairytale book.

Morris always felt that the mechanically woven carpets of his day were makeshifts for cheapness sake and when you look at the Woodpecker tapestry you know what he means. It is a magificent piece of work and is unique as it is the only tapestry designed entirely by Morris. Its subject is of the Latin poet Ovidi Metamorphoses and refers to the ancient Italian king Picus who spurned the advances of a sorcerer and was turned into a woodpecker.

If your house, like mine, is crammed with piles of useless junk, Morris has some useful advice for you; he commented: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Morris was a man of principle and even when dyeing his fabrics, he wanted to use organic substances rather than the quicker, cheaper processes of chemical dyes used by machines. He disliked these because the new colours they made were harsh in tone and faded rapidly and unevenly.

Another highlight of the gallery is a representation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, made from wool and silk and embroidered on natural linen.

I'd probably never get out of my bath at home if I had the tile panel for a bathroom on my wall at home. There are earthenware tiles painted in enamel colours with blue swirls of enamel leaves, stems and flowers.

In later life Morris recalled Walthamstow as a "suburban village on the edge of Epping Forest and once a pleasant enough place but now terribly cocknified and choked up by the jerry-builder." I wonder what he would have thought of it today.

Everything Morris stood for and believed in is strangely just as relevant today as it was in the 19th century. He once said: "There is no square mile on this earth that is not beautiful in its own way, if we men will only abstain from wilfully destroying that beauty."

He concluded that any individual effort at reforming art was useless. The solution he believed was a radical reorganisation of society and its resources, which he came to believe could only be achieved through socialism. Are you listening, New Labour?

William Morris facts

• Waltham Forest's motto Fellowship is life, is taken from Morris's novel A Dream of John Ball and reflects the borough's pride in its most famous son.
• Morris's family left the house in 1856. In the following year it was purchased by Edward Lloyd who was publisher of the popular newspapers such as Lloyds weekly and the Daily Chronicle.
• Though the house is large by today's standards it may have seemed cramped to the Lloyd family who had more than 20 children and numerous servants.
• Walthamstow changed dramatically during the Lloyd family's time here. The extension of the railway to Walthamstow in the 1870s brought a huge demand for housing for workers. n In 1898 the Lloyd family were generous enough to donate the house and its grounds to the people of Walthamstow. The grounds were opened as a public park in 1900.
• Water House was built in 1740s and takes its name from the moat which can still be seen in the grounds of Lloyd Park. The rustic cast iron bridge over the moat was probably built around the time Morris lived there. They used it for fishing and boating in the summer and skating in the winter.
• A visit to the gallery, just off Forest Road, can be combined with a visit to Lloyd Park which has bowling green facilities, swings, slide, tennis courts, skateboard park and a cafe and you can feed the ducks in the moat in the grounds of the gallery.

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