Against the Grain. The Sapperton group of craftsmen designers - ACE127.2

Leicester; the Secular Society. Arlington Mill, Bibury, Gloucestershire, now a museum, one room showing furniture made at the local workshop founded by Ernest Gimson. Gimson Engineering works, Leicester, founded by Ernest’s father, Josiah. Photographs. Donald Gimson talking about Josiah and the Leicester Secular Society, and about Ernest. Offices. Commentary explains that Ernest became an architect, while the whole family was committed to civic reform. Beam engines in Abbey pumping station. Donald Gimson VO says that his father Sidney invited William Morris to speak on art and socialism at the Secular Society in 1884. Shots of Leicester with parts of Morris’s lecture read over. Donald Gimson says Morris helped Ernest find work at J. D Sedding’s architectural practice where he met Ernest and Sidney Barnsley. Photographs. Photographs of Birmingham. Room designed, in Gothic Revival style, by J. H. Chamberlain. Arts and Crafts style designs by William Morris. Modelled plasterwork. Chair bodger making woven rush seat. Photograph of Barnsley brothers on European art tour; designs from Greece and early mediaeval Europe. Sketches by Gimson of frescoes at Berkeley, and of a stone squirrel in Winchster Cathedral. Photograph of Ernest Barnsley and family; villa designed by him. The Church of the Wisdom of God, Lower Kingswood, Surrey, designed by Sidney Barnsley, a mixture of English vernacular exterior with Byzantine interior. Furnishings made by Kenton and Company. Decorative chamfering, one of the Cotswold school’s motifs. Hand-painted roof. Wildflowers.