William Morris and Ladybird Books connections

Last week on the blog I focussed on hurricanes, inspired by my visit to the ThinkTank in Birmingham, and I promised I'd share my other discoveries from the Mint Cemetery and Winterbourne House. The latter has become even more relevant over the last week, but I can't for the life of me work out what connections I found between Loughborough and the Mint Cemetery! Well, here's a few pictures anyway:

The Mint Cemetery (aka Warstone)

A familiar name, but no relation to Loughborough's family

The catacombs

War grave

When we'd finished at the cemetery, we walked back through the jewellery quarter, and along the route saw a few 1920s and Art Deco buildings. If you're interested in Art Deco - and Loughborough has plenty of it! - don't miss the exhibition in the public library at the moment, which focusses on Loughborough's Art Deco buildings.

The Art Deco Electric Cinema from New Street station

An Art Deco building with familiar tiling

A 1920s building. Crittall windows, perhaps?

The walk to Winterbourne house also took us along the canal - which of course reminded me of Loughborough - which ran within feet of the railway line. 

Winterbourne House is a most exciting Arts and Crafts house, built around 1903, to the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement that was started by William Morris. The owner of Winterbourne, John Sutton Nettlefold, was instrumental in improving housing for the people of Birmingham and described as a pioneer of town planning. He was appalled by the Birmingham 'courts', where lots of dwellings were clustered around a central yard, with no access to any kind of garden, but with plenty of open sewers. There were quite a number of similar areas in Loughborough, although many have now been demolished or replaced.

One of Loughborough's extant Courts

Nettlefold (1) was also a believer in the idea of the 'garden city', and providing open spaces amongst new housing developments: Shelthorpe is our local example (more about this in 'Secret Loughborough'). 

Gateway to Shelthorpe!

As well as housing, Nettlefold was also involved in a company called Kynoch who made gun cartridges, for hunting, and apparently Annie Oakley, when touring England with Buffalo Bill, paid tribute to Kynoch's production of ammunition! You would be right in thinking that Buffalo Bill and his group came to Loughborough, in 1903, although I don't think Annie was on that particular trip (a little more in 'Secret Loughborough'). 

As well as the footprint and architectural design of Winterbourne House, much of the interior decoration also reflected the fashions of the time, with period furniture, little Arts and Crafts features and walls covered with patterns of the time. The garden of Winterbourne House was designed by Nettlefold's wife following the ideas presented by Gertrude Jekyll. 

It wasn't until last week that I made another exciting discovery, which links Loughborough to the likes of Winterbourne House, when I watched a television programme about renovating an Edwardian property (3). This was hosted by George Clarke (an architect hero of my youngest child), who actually came to Loughborough to visit the former Ladybird factory on Beeches Road - lovingly named Ladybird House - which is now home to what is known as Anstey Wallpaper Company. Now, I was aware that the company had taken over many other wallpaper designers/manufacturers, but hadn't realised that they actually had an archive (2) of block prints used in the printing of paper, going back to the 1860s and the time of William Morris! From the shots shown in the programme, the archive looked immense - and exciting! I now feel inspired to go back to the Leicester Print Workshop and take some classes in block printing - not that I could ever produce anything as stunning as William Morris, and other proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement! 

Grand Designs Show, 2009

Of course, one of the most striking Arts and Crafts houses in our area is Stoneywell Cottage, designed by Ernest Gimson, now owned by the National Trust. I feel another visit coming on ...

Stoneywell Cottage

(1) Please note that although this website is an interesting history, it does suggest that John Nettlefold's wife, Margaret, was the daughter of Arthur Chamberlain, whereas the information presented in Winterbourne House says that she was the daughter of Joseph Chamberlain. Whilst I am keen to share the work of other local history groups, I am concerned about this information, but deem the rest of the information on the site to be of interest. If I had time, I would check these claims out for myself, but sadly I don't, and they are only vaguely related to the focus of my blog. Feel free to do a bit of digging for yourself - and let me know the outcome!!

(2) There is a separate page for the archive, although it appears not to have a different url. In order to access it click 'Design' from the lefthand menu, which will open up 3 sub-options from which click 'Archive'.

(3) Hurry!! Only 16 days left to watch!! Series 6, Episode 2.

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Dyer, Lynne (2020). William Morris and the Ladybird Books connection. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/01/wiliam-morris-and-ladybird-books.html  [Accessed 26 January 2020]

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