Arts and Crafts buildings remain eternally popular, as they offer a unique combination of functionality and beauty, and often feature attractive, distinct and original details you likely won’t find elsewhere.
The movement began to take shape in the 1860s, inspired by a group of architects, artists and designers, including textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist William Morris; architect and interior designer Augustus Pugin; and art critic John Ruskin. They were concerned about the loss of traditional craft skills and the increasing mechanisation of manufacturing, had a disdain for fussy High Victorian design, and a general desire to return to Nature.
Arts and Crafts was more a set of ideals than a prescriptive style, and although the movement originated in the city, it had a nostalgia for rural traditions and a simpler life. Things spread quickly across Europe and America, continuing through the early 20th century. Buildings were typically understated and elegant and were constructed within the local vernacular, using local materials and traditions. They used natural materials, such as wood, stone and clay. Common characteristics included sloped roofs, verandahs and porches, intricate tile work and wood detailing.
Plenty survive in this country with several now operating as hotels.
Winsford Cottage Hospital, Beaworthy, Devon
This is a superb example of an Arts and Crafts building, and has been very accurately restored by the Landmark Trust, which rescues and restores historic buildings, letting them out for self-catering holidays to pay for their maintenance and preservation.
Grade II* listed Winsford was designed by architect and furniture and textile designer Charles Voysey, who was at the forefront of the Arts and Crafts movement. Built in 1899, with its elegant mullioned windows and striking triple gables, it couldn’t look much less like a hospital. Yet soldiers from the First World War with trench fever, Second World War evacuees, pregnant women, farmers, labourers and many more stayed within its solid, thick walls.
The Arts and Crafts style abounds throughout, from Voysey’s signature white-and-dark-green colour scheme, to the window fittings and door furniture, and architectural motifs of hearts, birds and trees. During a £1.5 million restoration, concrete was removed to reveal the original mosaic flooring. Arts and Crafts-style solid oak tables, chairs and other furniture, colourful and heavily-patterned curtains, and fireplaces sporting hearts — a Voysey trademark — grace the tranquil building set within a sizable lawned garden with a large verandah.
Court, Bosloe House, Falmouth, Cornwall
Court is a sumptuous five-bedroom apartment located inside the east wing of Bosloe, a striking Arts and Crafts-style manor built in 1903.
Numerous Arts and Crafts’ features on the building’s exterior have survived, including natural, locally-sourced materials such as stone and wood, mullioned windows, sloped roofs and a prominent front porch. It has a charming little cobbled courtyard, beautiful gardens overlooking the Helford River and is a short walk from the beach on one side and sleepy hamlet of Durgan.
Inside, however, it’s another story because of the modern tiling, kitchen fittings and glass walls.
Goddards, Abinger Common, Surrey
This imposing, striking building, set in a delightful seven-acre plot, was originally built as a holiday rest home for `ladies of small means’.
It was designed by Edwin Lutyens, one of Britain's most renowned and prolific Arts and Crafts architects, and built between 1898 and 1900 and enlarged in 1910. The courtyard garden was masterminded by prolific garden designer and former Country Life Gardens Editor, Gertrude Jekyll.
Symmetrical, with a diagonally-placed wing at each end fanning out from the centre, Goddards also features a charming skittle alley that was installed so that the original lady guests were kept suitably entertained on rainy days. The treasure-trove of Arts and Crafts features includes intricate window fittings and door furniture, magnificent oak doors, and ornate brickwork.
Maplehurst House, Galashiels, Scotland
Located on the Southern Upland Way close to the River Tweed, Maplehurst was built in 1906 by a local mill owner, Andrew Fairgrieve, for his Canadian wife, Carrie. This Arts and Crafts highlight has touching details such as maple leaf motifs on the stained glass windows, plus Charles Voysey detailing on the oak banisters. The solid wood panelling and floor is also made of oak; a tapestry dates back to the early 1900s; and the reception hall fireplace has managed to hold tight to its original tiles.
Broad Leys, Windemere, Cumbria
Broad Leys is another Voysey creation, completed in 1899, and with a wonderful outlook across to Lake Windemere. It was originally built for the family of a Wakefield magnate, but has been the home of the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club since 1950.
Voysey took exceptional care over the construction of his buildings, doing all the drawings himself and managing every detail of the construction — and Broad Leys was no exception.
Look out for the substantial oak doors with shaped hinges, a double-height curved bay window, oak panelling, a verandah, a steeply pitched overhanging roof, bold chimney stacks and mullioned windows.
Beach House, Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire
This hotel and restaurant is a Grade II-listed, Victorian mansion built in the Arts and Crafts style. You can see the Isle of Wight and The Needles from its confines.
Constructed in 1897 for Alexander Siemens, — who created the world’s first public electricity supply at Godalming in Surrey — Beach House was designed by Scottish architect Arnold Mitchell.
The Pre-Raphaelite scene stained glass windows in the bar area were masterminded by Oscar Paterson, whose work is considered ‘the epitome of the Glasgow Style’, a movement closely associated with the Arts and Crafts one. There are also oak-panelled walls, parquet floors and Pre-Raphaelite fireplaces — complete with tiles by William De Morgan, a designer for William Morris.
Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle
The Georgian-style Jesmond Dene House was bought by Tyneside shipbuilder Captain Andrew Noble in 1871, after which it was extended by leading Arts and Crafts architect Norman Shaw. He added a great hall, billiard room, Gothic porch and bedrooms.
Bits of note include a De Morgan-tiled inglenook fireplace, tall, mullioned and transomed gables, Jacobean-style panelling and plasterwork, stone carvings and stained glass.
In Noble’s time Japanese princes, admirals and ambassadors, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle all stayed or dined at Jesmon Dene.
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