Happy Birthday William Morris

…..there’s are some nice Morrisiana around the country: one of the most unlikely spots is Cliffe Castle, a merchant’s pile at Keighley, superbly restored and refurbished inside, which has a whole chamber devoted to precious and very early Morris & Co. glass from Yorkshire buildings, the prize exhibit being an early series of Tristram and Isoude windows including a couple designed by Morris himself, and others by Burne-Jones and Rossetti.

Also well worth special trips are Red House at Bexleyheath, recently saved and opened by the National Trust – Morris’s first house, designed for him by Philip Webb; and Kelmscott Manor, the grander country house he moved to, near Oxford, shown to visitors by the Society of Antiquaries.