The regions around Leicester offer a wide variety of venues that link into the Arts & Crafts Movement. Some can be visited within a half day – others might take a little longer.
Belgrave Hall Museum & Gardens, Leicester
The dinning room at Belgrave Hall is set in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The furniture was designed by the famous Cotswold Group, of which Ernest Gimson was a member.
78 Derngate, Northampton, East Midlands
A unique house, remodelled in 1916-17 by renowned Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Northampton businessman, Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke.
Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton, West Midlands
Victorian manor house with William Morris interiors and colourful garden.
Owlpen Manor, Near Uley, Gloucestershire
Owlpen Manor is a romantic grey limestone Tudor manor house set in a remote wooded valley in the Cotswolds. Owlpen was rescued in 1925 by Norman Jewson who was a follower of Ernest Gimson, an architect and furniture designer inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. Jewson carefully restored Owlpen as his own residence using the 'conservative' principles first advocated by William Morris.
Rodmarton Manor, Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Rodmarton Manor is a supreme example of a house built and all its
furniture made according to Arts and Crafts ideals and was one of the last country houses to be built and furnished in the old traditional style when everything was done by hand with local stone, local timber and local craftsmen.
Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
The Arts and Crafts Gallery offers an opportunity to appreciate fine craftsmanship, art and design from about 1880 to the 1940s with internationally important collections. This is the collection for which the Art Gallery & Museum has received designated status.
Kelmscott Manor, Kelmscott, Gloucestershire
William Morris chose it as his summer home, signing a joint lease with the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the summer of 1871. Morris loved the house as a work of true craftsmanship, totally unspoilt and unaltered, and in harmony with the village and the surrounding countryside.
