National Trust 125th Anniversary

For the 125th anniversary of the National Trust we were invited to film one Trust's 125 treasures.
William Morris (1834–96), founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, was one of the most influential designers of the 19th century, and his decorative schemes, based on natural subjects, have become classics of design culture. This embroidered hanging in coloured silks on linen depicts a simple orange tree, grown as a standard, with bushy foliage, golden oranges and roses climbing up its slender trunk. Although previously thought to have been created for William Morris’s home, Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent, it is more likely to be a later adaptation of Morris’s design by his daughter Mary, known as May (1862–1938).

The gentle aesthetic of this simple hanging reflects those of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which valued handmade products with a utility of purpose and championed a return to craft traditions. The hanging was used over a door at Bateman’s, the East Sussex home of the author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), who was close to the Morris circle.