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A Short Break at Standen House

5th January 2017

A couple of weeks ago, a family friend of ours was lucky enough to go stay in Standen House in West Sussex, now a National Trust owned property, with stunning views of the Medway Valley and Ashdown Forest; a perfect location for a country home. Originally it belonged to James Beale, a prosperous London solicitor, who lived there with his wife Margaret and their family. It was between 1891 and 1894 that William Morris’ close friend Philip Webb designed the house; filling it with beautiful Morris & Co. carpets, fabrics and wallpapers, even designing the gardens to perfectly compliment the splendour of the house. After James Beale died in 1912, his wife lived there, and afterwards two generations of unmarried daughters until Helen’s death in 1972; when the home was left to the National Trust as a Historical Place of Interest or Natural Beauty. Having visited Standen multiple times throughout the years, and being lucky enough to have a range of our products sold in their shop, we’re very glad the family were generous enough to leave their house for everyone to enjoy!

The Arts & Crafts house was built as a modern home; which was complete with central heating and electricity, which was a complete luxury. Today, the house has been so well looked after that the original light fittings remain. Webb’s design vision was to make it look like it had always been there, ‘grown’ from the rock face, becoming part of the landscape; according to the National Trust website, “the land that Standen now stands upon was originally made up of three farms: Stone, Hollybush and Standen.”

Though it was built as a modern home, Webb preserved some of the medieval farm buildings already on the site, incorporating them into the design.

Webb, in line with the Arts & Craft Movement, ensured the house was built using traditional methods, using local materials. The Arts & Crafts Movement is one you can see examples of all over the World today; begininning in Britain in 1880, it spread across Europe and America, reaching Japan as the Mingei (Folk Crafts) Movement, leading it to  be called one of the most influential design movements in modern times. Growing in Britain at a time of industrialisation, the movement was born from concern that traditional skills from ordinary people were being replaced, so it turned the home into a space where art produced by the every man was appreciated and encouraged. Two of the most influential figures of the movement were John Ruskin and William Morris.

 

“Have nothing in your house you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”- William Morris

Webb definitely stuck to his friend’s advice when decorating Standen, which is kept up in the apartment which is available to rent is filled with beautiful wallpaper and furnishings. The apartment lies in the original rooms the Beale family would have lived in and features lots of beautiful Morris designs:

Thanks to our friend Margot and her family for these photos of the apartment and Standen itself, what a beautiful setting for a short break!

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A little update from us 🇬🇧
From 1st July, our product prices will be increasing due to continued rises in manufacturing and material costs.
We’ve worked hard to absorb these increases for as long as possible, but to continue providing the quality you expect from us, a small price adjustment is now necessary.
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Gorgeous postbox 📮 If you’d like a free sample of any of our fabrics just send us a message and we’ll get them sent out to you 💌 If you’re ordering from abroad, we will always take the parcel to the post office to make sure we’re comparing different postage methods to get the best postage prices for you- we’re wanting to spread the floral goodness global! Today I pottered to the post office to send a lovely pvc apron to Australia which is amazing that Morris is well known world wide! 🐨🦘🇦🇺 
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The best season is peony season 🫶🏻 Our favourite flowers, having peonies blooming in the house is always the best ✨ This is our William Morris Merton design, the most stunning blue and white pattern is so timeless ✨
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Lily is one of our favourite William Morris designs, it’s such a beautiful botanical design with all those willow leaves in the background 🌿 
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Happy Strawberry Thief day! 🍓 On this day in 1883, Morris registered this beautiful design, isn’t it amazing that all these years later, it’s still as timeless as ever now more popular than ever and decorating homes across the world 🐦‍⬛ 
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We want to say a huge THANK YOU to all our lovely customers who have been so patient with us whilst our website checkout has been all in a tizzy - and thank you for your orders on another platform, we appreciate you keeping us going as a small business- but, we’re back up and running now so please use code: THANKYOU at checkout for 15% off until Sunday 🫶🏻✨ (song was me when we finally got tech issues fixed 🫠😂)
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📣 This fabric is on a big sale! 📣 Our red Strawberry Thief drill fabric is currently on sale for £15 a metre 🍓 Our drill fabric is a slightly heavier weight and weave than our heavyweight fabric and is perfect for light upholstery, curtain making and more 🪡🧵 It won’t be on sale long so grab yourself some whilst you can ✨
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The soundtrack to our day- our fabric cutter! 🎼 If you ever order fabric from us this is how we get our cuts so straight ☺️ Did you know that we sell our fabrics by the half meter, so however big or small your project is, we’ve got fabric for you ☺️ This is our gorgeous William Morris Strawberry Thief blue design, it’s very often on our cutting table as it’s so popular! Do you prefer it in red or in blue? 🍓 
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Replacing all normal eggs with chocolate ones for the foreseeable future 🐣 Brother Rabbit Green on the table always looks so beautiful, we just love this new colour way in this gorgeous William Morris design ✨
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Gorgeous flowers this weekend 🤍 We can’t get over the beautiful tulips 🌷 Brother Rabbit blue on the table, do you prefer it in the blue, red or green? 🌿
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A moment for the greens 🌿 We know sometimes it’s hard imagining different designs together for projects whether you’re quilting with tonal colours or mix matching curtains and cushions, the things you can do with our William Morris fabrics are endless, so seeing them together you can see how beautifully they pair together ✨ We’ll post the blues next so you can see them together too! 🤍 Message us if you’d like a sample of anything, we send them free in the UK 📮
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Back in stock alert! ✨ All sizes of our gorgeous William Morris blue Strawberry Thief tablecloths & napkins 🌿 Sometimes the easiest napkin folds are the most effective (we have no bias towards this being our favourite just because it contains a chocolate egg… promise…) 🐰 
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