7 Hammersmith Terrace 2012

The former residence of Sir Emery Walker – printer, collector and friend and mentor to William Morris – is open to visitors from April to September. Boasting a remarkably well preserved interior in the Arts and Crafts style, the house has been kept much as it was when Walker moved in in 1907. Morris wallpapers and textiles, along with furniture and glass by Philip Webb, ceramics by William de Morgan and furniture by Ernest Gimson give the house its distinctive character. The garden, overlooking the river, is also laid out as it was during the owner’s lifetime, with fragrant jasmine, roses and wisteria. Entry is by pre-booked tour only (groups are limited to eight people). New to the tour this year is a beautiful Kelmscott Press book, ‘The Floure and the Leafe, & the Boke of Cupide’, a nineteenth-birthday present from Emery Walker to his daughter Dorothy in 1897. A decorative wooden chest by Cotswold Arts and Crafts artist Ernest Gimson is also back on display after restoration. Work continues to restore the original garden layout based on Dorothy Walker’s planting notes and photographs from the 1920s and ’30s.