BEDFORD PARK
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Bedford Park Over the years, Bedford Park has found itself at the beating heart of change. At the forefront of the Garden Suburb Movement in the 1870s, it was also a mere stone’s throw from where Victorian arts pioneer William Morris was masterminding a tremendous shift in design. Later, the area became the home and site of early work to disciple of Morris, architect and artist, C.F.A. Voysey, and the setting for Morris’s contemporaries, whose work would move the dial of design, ever forward.From Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) whose lasting architectural legacy includes the...

The Bedford Park collection brings together an inner circle of towering creative talents, heroes of British design that all at times gathered around this famed area of London. William Morris, the leading light of the Arts & Crafts movement, C.F.A. Voysey, Allan Francis Vigers and J.H. Dearle set the visual scene, creating all a manner of striking designs, dedicated to the principles of the craft and promoting artistry and one’s connection to nature with every stroke of a brush and pencil marking. A Timeline of Design William Morris Allan Francis Vigers WILLIAM MORRIS DESIGNS ALL AN FRANCIS...

Campanula’s gloriously flat design, a densely populated frame of vibrant flowers, is given another layer of intensity with a supercharged palette. Alan Francis Vigers produced Campanula in 1900 and had it printed at Jeffrey & Co. wallpaper printers, a manufacturer widely regarded as respectful of the crafting technique. We’ve surflex printed Campanula, offering a contrast in depth between the flat surface and three dimensionality of the design, paying homage to the wooden printing blocks used widely in the days of William Morris.

Glade is a botanist’s delight, with delicately stylised florals arranged in a harmonious assemblage. Keen eyes will see more than a hint of William Morris’s first-ever wallpaper design, Daisy, in Glade. Demonstrating the close relationship and creative dialogue between the two great designers, Glade’s simple, wholesome form exemplifies their shared ethic: there is beauty in natural simplicity.

In around 1895, C.F.A. Voysey first gave us Laceflower. Swaying in an imagined wind, Voysey’s characteristic birds chirp among the stems and flowerheads. The gentle movement in the pattern is emphasised by simple, saturated colour stories, with Tobacco & Pistachio offering a sophisticated, retro feeling directly taken from the original document we hold in our archive.

Apart from Morris himself, there is no greater author of the large-scale and rhythmically swirling patterns than his apprentice, J.H. Dearle, creator of the adapted Leicester. Dearle’s 1912 design retains all of its ecstatic movement, with the folding acanthus leaves and miniature, jewel-like flowerheads readily soaking up great depths of colour.

Beware, Alan Francis Vigers’s upbeat, jolly 1901 design has a somewhat darker undertone to its charming visual demeanour. So named because its head resembles the rounded shape of a monk’s habit, this plant is also referred to as wolfsbane, recalling its use as a toxic poison used to coat arrows fired at marauding wolves in Classical times. This plant, as venomous as it is beautiful, is charmingly rendered by Vigers with innocuous innocence.

Psychedelia meets a signature Morris & Co. botanical, evoking the brand’s trippy colour experiments from the swinging ‘60s. Ensnaring and intoxicating, the swirling rhythm and hidden depths of William Morris’s 1876 Pimpernel have an irresistibly mythic pull. All tendrils and flowerheads, Pimpernel is a perfect example of Morris’s layering technique, adding texture and drama at every twist and turn.

C.F.A. Voysey, one of the foremost Arts & Crafts designers and architects of his generation, blends his architectural and decorative training in this, The Savaric. Featuring flocks of birds gracing branches below the high canopy of trees, The Savaric, originally from 1896, bears the unmistakable signature bird motif indicative of Voysey’s style. In Garden Green and Cirrus, we’ve retained the authentic Arts & Crafts colour stories.

Spring Thicket William Morris’s last-ever pattern made for wallpaper is a mysterious, brooding design from 1894. We’ve highlighted the beguiling foliage folds and tulip heads, lending the impression the flowers might lurch free of the paper’s surface. Choose the Fruit Punch colourway for a palette directly taken from the original design document stored in our archive.

A simple, two-toned design of infinite possibilities, Yew & Aril is a seamless choice as a coordinate fabric. A wonderful colour carrier, Yew & Aril’s small-scale design by Alan Francis Vigers describes the quiet beauty of the branches of a Yew tree and its charming berries, known as arils.

ALL AN FRANCIS VIGERS DESIGNS Campanula’s gloriously flat design, a densely populated frame of vibrant flowers, is given another layer of intensity with a supercharged palette. Alan Francis Vigers produced Campanula in 1900 and had it printed at Jeffrey & Co. wallpaper printers, a manufacturer widely regarded as respectful of the crafting technique. Beware, Alan Francis Vigers’s upbeat, jolly 1901 design has a somewhat darker undertone to its charming visual demeanour. So named because its head resembles the rounded shape of a monk’s habit, this plant is also referred to as wolfsbane,...

C.F.A. Voysey, one of the foremost Arts & Crafts designers and architects of his generation, blends his architectural and decorative training in this, The Savaric. Featuring flocks of birds gracing branches below the high canopy of trees, The Savaric, originally from 1896, bears the unmistakable signature bird motif indicative of Voysey’s style. Glade is a botanist’s delight, with delicately stylised florals arranged in a harmonious assemblage. Keen eyes will see more than a hint of William Morris’s first-ever wallpaper design, Daisy, in Glade. In these punchy, updated colourways, we’ve...