Trellis at Standen House

An overcast bank holiday Monday meant an excursion to the nearby Standen in West Sussex, a National Trust Arts and Crafts family home with Morris & Co. interiors, set in a hillside garden.

William Morris (1834 – 96) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement.

During his career, William Morris designed more than 50 wallpapers that adopted a naturalistic take on pattern that was both new and quietly radical.

In the early 1860s the British wallpaper market was booming, with mass-produced papers offering homeowners a cheaper alternative to textile-based wall decoration. Conscious of wallpaper's accelerating popularity, Morris made it one of the first things his new interior decorations company put into serial production. The first paper Morris designed was 'Trellis' in 1862, a pattern suggested by the rose trellis in the garden of Red House, Morris's home in Kent