William Morris Fabrics and Textiles

Page 3

Block-printing cotton fabric at Merton Abbey. The fabric is ‘festooned’ beside the printing table for drying after printing.

“A visit to the works at Merton Abbey gives one a peep, as it were, into the past he loved so dearly… The primitive methods of dyeing, printing and weaving, still in work there, just suited his notion of design, which was indeed shaped according to the traditions of craftsmanship. There is nothing of the modern “factory” about his “mills”; an old-world air clings to the place, an atmosphere of quiet, and of some leisure, in which the workers, not harried to death, have space to breathe, and to enjoy something of the repose and beauty of the world.” [Description of the works in 1900]

Washing and drying printed fabrics by the river at Merton Abbey

“Imagine, by the Wandle’s side, an old walled garden. On the banks, long, low-roofed worksheds, and a waterwheel revolving at its ease; long strips of printed cotton a-rinsing in the stream; great hanks of yarn, fresh from the indigo vat, hung, drying in the air; dyers and printers moving easily about – in all, a sunlit picture of most peaceful work.”  [description of Merton Abbey in 1900]