Decorative Art Collecting : passion and fashion || The Arts and Crafts Movement collections at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum

The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

The Arts and Crafts Movement collections at Cheltenham Art Gallery and MuseumAuthor(s): Mary Greensted and Mary GreensteadSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, No. 24, Decorative ArtCollecting : passion and fashion (2000), pp. 48-57Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809297 .

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The Arts and Crafts

Movement collections at

Cheltenham Art Gallery and

Museum

Mary Greensted

Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum has the best and most accessible collections relating to the English Arts and Crafts Movement in this country. The importance of these collections has been recognised nation- ally for some years now. Grants for the purchase of objects have been awarded by bodies such as the Na- tional Heritage Memorial Fund and many visitors come from all over the world specifically to see them. In June 1998 the Art Gallery and Museum was awarded Designated Status by the Minis- ter of Culture, Me- dia and Sport on the strength of its Arts and Crafts Move- ment collections. The purpose of this essay is to explain how and why such singular collections developed in Chel- tenham, the quintes- sential Regency town [11.

Cheltenham Art Gallery was opened in 1899, part of a development which included the Mu- nicipal Library and the School of Sci- ence and Art, on a site adjacent to the Promenade, the hub of 19th-century town life. The impe- tus was the donation by the Baron de Ferrières of his collection of forty Dutch paintings to the town.The Baron,

a wealthy and public-spirited resident of Cheltenham and its former Liberal MP, also gave £1000 for the new building. A museum was formally opened eight year later, in 1907, when the School of Science and Art va- cated its premises. The collections expanded along broadly conventional lines with important archaeol- ogy, geology and social history on the one hand and excellent decorative arts concentrating on the 18th century and Regency period on the other added to the Art Gallery's core collection of 17th- and 19th- century Dutch paintings. The Arts and Crafts collections at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum developed slowly but logically throughout the 20th century, from the Movement's roots in the locality.

From Medieval times to the 17th century trade in wool had brought prosperity and considerable wealth to towns such as Cirencester, Chipping Campden and Northleach. Today the area is classed as one of

Fig. 1 . Part of the Arts and Crafts Movement gallery at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. This view includes furniture by Sidney Barnsley and Peter Waals, carvings by Alec Miller, Wedgwood pottery decorated by Grace Barnsley, and paintings by Alfred Thornton, Gerald Gardiner and William Rothenstein. Photography: Woodley & Quick

Frontispiece to article : Fig. la. Part of the facade of Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum showing some of the craftwork commissioned for the 1989 extension: the stained-glass window by Chinks Grylls and the metal grille by Alan Evans. Photography: Woodley & Quick

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Outstanding Natural Beauty yet the landscape was not generally appreciated until the second half of the 19th century. In Shakespeare's Richard II the Earl of Northumberland commented on the 'high wild hills and rough uneven ways' of the Cotswolds. William Cobbett also wrote about the general cheerlessness, austerity and poverty of the landscape in his Rural Rides of 1821. Cobbett 's comments referred to the dominating presence of Cotswold limestone in the landscape and emphasised the relationship between the region's geology and architecture. This close relationship between the landscape and its buildings was highlighted by Alec Clifton Taylor writing in The Pattern of English Building:

'Nothing is more striking about Cotswold buildings than the visual accord which they achieve with the landscape in which they are placed ... in the Cotswolds the buildings themselves, even the barns, are of such high quality that at every turn it is they that we notice first. The landscape here plays second fiddle: it is the background, the mise-en-scène , the frame. That is why, for those who cherish our building heritage, the Cotswolds occupy a special place . .' [2]

The Cotswolds held a strong attraction for artists, architects and designers in the second half of the 19th century. Edward Austin Abbey, the American artist, made his home in the north Cotswolds from 1880 and became the centre of a fluid expatriate community including the illustrator, Alfred Parsons. In 1900 Guy Dawber, having written a series of enthusiastic articles about the vernacular architecture of Broadway and other Cotswold towns in The Builder , set up an architectural practice in the Gloucestershire village of Bourton-on-the-Hill. His passion for Cotswold buildings was shared by William Morris as illustrated by essays such as The Importance of Building Materials upon Architecture of 1892 and in his love for his country retreat at Kelmscott Manor. In 1 877 Morris set up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings as a direct response to plans for major restoration work at Burford Church and Tewkesbury Abbey.

This sense of place attracted many Arts and Crafts architects and designers to the Cotswolds. Ernest Gimson, the brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley, and their friends set up craft communities in the south Cotswold villages around Cirencester from 1 893 while C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft moved to the town of Chipping Campden in 1902.This first generation of Arts and Craft designer-makers also chose the Cotswolds for more practical reasons. The region's character as a cultural backwater meant that craft traditions had survived better in the Cotswolds than in many other areas. It may have been undiscovered but it was relatively accessible by road and rail. Above all economic decline in the region had been dramatic during the. Industrial Revolution as the wool trade moved to new northern centres, bringing depopulation and in its wake the availability of cheap property for rent.

From the late 19th century onwards the Arts and Crafts Movement made its mark on Cheltenham. A spectacular rose window by Edward Burne-Jones for Morris and Company forms the focal point of All Saints Church in the Pittville area of the town. Local educational establishments particularly Cheltenham Ladies College were patrons of the Movement commissioning work from Burne-Jones, John Paul Cooper, Arthur Gaskin, and Eric Gill among others. The Cheltenham Reference Library built up a strong collection of the literature of the Arts and Crafts and commissioned J Eadie Read, a local artist who had worked with Ashbee in London, to design its bookplate in 1897. The Art Gallery and Museum, run jointly with the Library from its inception until 1973, showed Arts and Crafts work from the start of the 20th century. A temporary display of work by Christopher Whall, who designed the stained glass for the Lady Chapel at Gloucester Cathedral, was held in 1903 and in 1906 a selection of decorative arts mainly from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition held at the Grafton Gallery, London was displayed in Cheltenham.

However the foundations for the present collection were laid by Daniel W Herdman, Librarian-Curator from 1922 to 1950. From 1907 he had lived in the north-east of England, at Roker near Sunderland, the site of Edward Prior's Arts and Crafts masterpiece, St Andrew's Church and it is possible that he may have met the architect and some of the designers involved in its interior at this stage. The building contains work by Burne-Jones, Gimson, Louise Powell and others. For Herdman the Arts and Crafts Movement, craftsmanship and handwork were about education in its broadest sense, a source of employment and fulfilling work. He quickly developed close personal contacts based with craftspeople throughout the area. Letters survive from many of these including May Morris at Kelmscott Manor which are warm in tone and include frequent invitations to tea. Gordon Russell aptly described Herdman 's relationship with his father, S B Russell, and many others when, on the day of his father's death in January 1938, he wrote of 'a great mutual liking' based on respect.

When Herdman moved to Cheltenham in 1922 he found plans in hand for an exhibition of architectural metal, wood and plaster work by four Cheltenham art manufacturers. He decided to repeat this show the following year with the addition of work by twenty individual craftsmen and women from the Cotswold area. This exhibition became a regular tradition with a local growing emphasis on quality individual craftwork taken up in the towns of Chipping Campden and Painswick. It was an effective way for Herdman 4 to attract interest to this district as one of growing importance in the world of individual craft production' [3].The 1923 exhibition was planned to coincide with the annual conference of the National Association of Manual Training Teachers in Cheltenham and the show was warmly received by the educators and reviewed in their journal:

50



'An Exhibition of art and craft work always makes an irresistible appeal to the craftsman and to most cultured people. The more of these exhibitions we can have the better we shall be. They are, in the best sense of the word, educational, because they help to raise the standard of public taste and discrimination, and give encouragement to craftsmen, particularly those working on individual lines. . . I was glad to see many of the delegates handling and examining the exhibits. Many were making sketches and this, I think, is the best testimony to the value of the exhibition/ [4]

It was their inclusion in this exhibition which gave the Broadway firm of Russell and Sons and the young Gordon Russell an important boost which he described in his autobiography Designer's Trade :

'. . .we were invited to send some exhibits to a small show at Cheltenham by its able and hardworking director, W. H. Herdman, who had visited our showroom. This was our first exhibition, and it was an unforgettable one for Major A. A. Longden of the Department of Overseas Trade went to it, then came to Broadway and asked us to exhibit in 1923 in a show he was preparing in the North Court of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. We did a café, which

Fig. 2. Chair in walnut inlaid with ebony stringing and chamfered ebony uprights designed by Peter Waals and made at his Chalford workshop in about 1936-7. It was bought for Cheltenham for £8.10.0. from an Exhibition of Gloucestershire Art & Craftsmanship held at Painswick in 1937. Photography :Woodley & Quick

Fig. 3. Design by Ernest Gimson for a modelled and coloured plaster panel for the library of Cambridge Medical Schools dated January 1915. One of the archive of nearly 2000 Gimson drawings rescued by the Art Gallery and Museum in 1941 which include architectural work, furniture, metalwork, plasterwork and embroidery.

51



caused much fluttering in the dovecotes. It wasn't a bad little job, though a bit rustic and unfinished, and we learned a great deal from it.' [5] Russell and Sons were subsequently invited to take part in a number of prestigious shows including the 1924 Wembley Exhibition. For Gordon Russell himself the Victoria and Albert Museum show also provided him with an introduction to his fellow exhibitors, Ambrose Heal and Heal and Sons, a relationship which remained important throughout his career. Russell's development of a successful craft business at Broadway was an example of Herdman's passionately-held belief that the crafts could provide a source of employment in the Cotswolds and attract visitors to the area.

Herdman also commissioned Peter Waals at Chalford near Stroud to design a number of show cases for the Art Gallery and Museum in the 1920s and '30s most of which are still in use. A large case in English walnut with ebony handles was ordered in 1927 for the express purpose to have at least one case made 'on first-class lines'. It was often used to display work from prestigious touring exhibitions and remains relatively adaptable and easy to use despite its size and scale. Herdman also hoped that 'it would do something to take away the reproach that while we have craft exhibitions we do not possess a modern example ourselves' [6].This gap began to be format remedied in the 1930s.

The first piece of Arts and Crafts furniture acquired by the Art Gallery and Museum for its collections was a piece submitted by Waals to the exhibition of Cotswold Art and Craftsmanship at Cheltenham in 1935. It was also a practical piece, a small mahogany picture stand designed to sit on a flat surface which continued to be used for its intended purpose. Another Waals design, a walnut dining chair with chamfered ebony uprights was also bought from an exhibition at Painswick in 1937. From the sale of the effects of Gimson s widow in 1941, Herdman acquired a number of pieces both for Cheltenham and, because wartime petrol rationing made it difficult for the curator to attend, for Leicester Museum. For Cheltenham he bought a bobbin-turned chair in yew and an oak coffer with unfinished decoration in gesso while the oak settle which was purchased for Leicester remains one of the public's favourite pieces at Belgrave Hall Museum. Herdman also purchased Gimson's stained oak kitchen dresser for himself. To Trevor Thomas, the curator at Leicester, he explained that it 4 was not exactly a museum piece', at least not unless one could devote a complete area to Gimson's work which neither museum was doing at this date. However, at the death of his widow in 1962, the dresser was bequeathed to Cheltenham. Herdman's major coup at the 1941 sale was to save nearly 2000 of Gimson's designs and working drawings as well as a large collection, of photographs, reference material and sketchbooks which had belonged to the designer. Apparently he was moved to tears at finding Gimson's work so unappreciated. With a local retired

Fig. 4. Tile panel by William De Morgan, first produced about 1872, in its original frame and with a Morris & Company sticker. Given to Cheltenham in 1941 and described by the donor as in the 'so-called Persian style'. Photography :Woodley & Quick

architect, Major J N G Clift, he spent many hours cleaning and sorting the drawings. His foresight and dedication resulted in the development of a major archive of Arts and Crafts material at Cheltenham. This archive has grown considerably since 1941 with the addition of a wide variety of material including the reference archives of the furniture restorer and writer, Max Burrough; a collection of stencils used by the Guild of Handicraft; plaster moulds made by Norman Jewson; and in 1991 the important library of Emery Walker.

Although Arts and Crafts furniture formed the core of the Cheltenham collections, a number of significant donations ensured their development in other areas. The first examples of art pottery were acquired in 1927 directly from the Ruskin Pottery, Smethwick. The pottery's co-founder, W. Howson Taylor, donated pieces to a number of museum collections in the 1920s. Cheltenham received a lidded jar with a spectacular sang-de-boeuf glaze and bowl on a stand with a, flambé glaze. Such gifts were a generous method of commemorating the pottery's achievements. H C Mossop, a London-based solicitor with vicarious connections to the Arts and Crafts Movement, also made gifts of pottery in the 1940s. His sister had painted in William De Morgan's studio in the late 1870s and early 1880s and he himself 'made a sort of kiln, also in Chelsea'. After De Morgan's works closed in 1907, he

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collected pieces which were left behind. Towards the end of his life, he gave examples to museum collections in Leicester and Cheltenham having noted that the designer's work was well represented at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at Stoke on Trent. As well as a lustre dish, small jug and individual tiles he donated a selection of tile panels including one example in the 'so-called Persian style' and two which were described as 'somewhat Pre-Raphaelite' [7] in feeling. These gifts formed a significant part of a small but interesting collection including pieces by Bernard Moore, Edmund Elton, the Royal Lancastrian Pottery, and Wedgwood decorated by Alfred and Louise Powell which was assembled by the 1950s.

Herdman retired in 1950 but was asked to assist in the organisation of an exhibition of Cotswold Craftsmanship planned as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain celebrations. The exhibition held in the Montpellier Rotunda brought together a stunning collection of 320 items from public and private collections and ensured that Cheltenham was one of 37 featured sites in the national Festival of Britain programme. The highlights of the exhibition included two Kenton and Company chests by W R Lethaby lent by Ernest Barnsley's widow; two cabinets by Sidney Barnsley and Peter Waals with painted decoration by

Louise Powell from the family of C H Stjohn Hornby; a walnut dining table by Ernest Gimson from University College, Leicester; furniture by C RAshbee and Gordon Russell; Gimson metalwork from Roker Church; nearly fifty pieces of silver and jewellery by Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft; and textiles by William and May Morris. The show also included a selection of contemporary work from the Guild of Gloucestershire Craftsmen. The generosity of a local collector, Arthur Mitchell, in funding the photography of nearly every item has provided a valuable record of this important exhibition.

Herdman 's successor, Harold G Fletcher, built on the success of the 1951 exhibition and the collections of Arts and Crafts furniture expanded rapidly in the 1950s and '60s with the assistance of local benefactors including the Cadbury family. The Arts and Crafts were considered unfashionable and many collections such as that of the brewer Arthur Mitchell were dispersed after their deaths. Fletcher was an astute student of the art market and was able to purchase pieces relatively cheaply. However the original emphasis on the educational value of the crafts was no longer at the forefront during this period. Instead they were viewed as antiques of the future. This change in attitude after the 1950s is illustrated by the acquisition of two pieces

Fig. 5. Part of the Exhibition of Cotswold Craftsmanship held at the Montpellier Rotunda, Cheltenham, as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. This view includes, on the left, a Kenton and Company chest designed by W R Lethaby and the Farm Team carved in oak by William Simmonds, and, in the centre, the display case commissioned from Peter Waals in 1927 containing silver and jewellery by C RAshbee and the Guild of Handicraft.

53



Fig. 6. A squirrel roundel from a pair of fire dogs designed by Ernest Gimson in about 1905-15 and made in polished steel by Alfred and Norman Bucknell at their smithy at Waterlane, Gloucestershire in about 1919-24. The design was based on a carved stone squirrel at Winchester Cathedral sketched by Gimson in 1888. The firedogs were purchased for the Art Gallery and Museum in 1956 for >¿14.

Fig. 7. Armchair designed by C F A Voysey in 1883-5 and made for William and Haydee Ward Higgs in oak about 1898. Part of a collection ofVoysey's work for the Ward Higgs family purchased in 1981 with the assistance of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the National Art Collections Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the W A Cadbury Charitable Trust.

of metalwork. The first piece, a polished steel door handle designed by Ernest Gimson between about 1905 and 1915 and made by Alfred Bucknell or his son, Norman, was acquired by Herdman in 1937. The curator had first seen the sample piece, mounted on to two pieces of oak, at an open-air show held in Cheltenham in the summer of 1934. He obtained it on loan for inclusion in a travelling exhibition promoting good craftsmanship and subsequently bought it for the Art Gallery and Museum's collections. Another piece from the collections made by the father-and-son team of blacksmiths to Gimson's design was the set of fire dogs with squirrel roundels. These were bought locally at auction in 1956 and found an incongruous home for many years in a 'Victorian Kitchen' room setting.

In the 1960s Fletcher developed plans for a Gallery of Cotswold Craftsmanship as part of a new arts centre envisaged for Cheltenham. This scheme, which unfortunately never materialized, encouraged the trustees of Eric Sharpe's estate to donate a selection of his work to the Art Gallery and Museum in 1967. Sharpe, a former pupil of A Romney Green, had designed and made furniture in his workshop at Martyr Worthy, Hampshire from 1930 specialising in carved and inlaid work. His work was felt to be relevant to Cheltenham because his designs were very much in

the spirit of Gimson and the Barnsleys even though he could not be classified as a Cotswold designer. This was the beginning of a wider focus for the Cheltenham collections.

The 1970s saw a revival of interest in the Arts and Crafts Movement linked both with the vogue for Art Nouveau styles and with a new enthusiasm for craftsmanship, alternative lifestyles, and country living. The 1969 retrospective exhibition on the work of Ernest Gimson at Leicester organised by Lionel Lambourne had a major impact on the appreciation of Cotswold craftsmanship. At Cheltenham, Arts and Crafts furniture was still playing a very subsidiary role, either behind the scenes in the Art Gallery and Museum or displayed sporadically throughout the building. A fine oak wardrobe by Waals was in use in the costume store while the staff library was furnished with pieces by Sidney Barnsley. The separation of library and museum services in 1973 was followed by the appointment of a new director for the Art Gallery and Museum. David Addison emphasised the importance of exhibitions to attract and inspire new visitors. A small display of Gimson's drawings from the collections was followed by an exhibition 'Good Citizen's Furniture' on the work of Ernest and Sidney Barnsley in 1976. The response from visitors was so enthusiastic

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Fig. 8. Detail of a double-sided pendant in gold with enamel set with pearls, moonstones and emeralds. Designed by Henry Wilson with a Tudor rose on the reverse and probably made in his workshop about 1907-10. Given by Professor and Mrs Hull Grundy in 1983.

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that space had to be found for a permanent display and in 1977 the first Arts and Crafts Movement gallery at Cheltenham was opened.

A major decision had to be made when in 1981 Cheltenham was offered the opportunity to purchase seven pieces of furniture and a copper pen tray designed by C F A Voysey for William and Haydee Ward Higgs between about 1883 and 1900. The family wanted the items to remain as a group and it was at the suggestion of the late Clive Wainwright at the Victoria and Albert Museum that they were offered to Cheltenham. This was a turning point for the Art Gallery and Museum as the purchase represented a major financial outlay and one which would irrevocably alter the character of its Arts and Crafts collections. By acquiring such important pieces outside the Cotswold parameters Cheltenham made a commitment to the Arts and Crafts Movement on a national level which had to be pursued vigorously to be justifiable.

This commitment was continued under the directorship of George Breeze from 1981. The following year Professor and Mrs Hull Grundy agreed to put together a collection of Arts and Crafts metalwork and jewellery to complement the expanding collection of furniture. This area was very poorly represented apart from a few pieces designed by Ernest Gimson, George Hart, and Thornton and Downer, former Guild of Handicraft blacksmiths. A plated muffin dish by C R Ashbee had been acquired in 1979 but no other Arts and Crafts designer was represented in the collections. Mrs Hull Grundy's work as a museum benefactor is detailed elsewhere in this issue. Working with her was an unforgettable experience which included the regular receipt by post of scantily- wrapped parcels of exquisite and fragile jewellery and silver. The breadth of the collection of more than 100 pieces put together over 18 months is proof of the good relationship she had with dealers all over the country. Although she could occasionally be persuaded by a curator's suggestion, most of the purchases were made at her decision. Mrs Hull Grundy built up a magnificent collection for Cheltenham including twenty items of silver by Ashbee, a spectacular pendant necklace by Henry Wilson, jewellery by Arthur and Geòrgie Gaskin, cast bronze pieces by the Bromsgrove Guild and work by Archibald Knox, Kate Harris and Jessie Marion King for Liberty. As many of the pieces were not produced as one-offs and because most were purchased from dealers, the Arts and Crafts metalwork and jewellery collection lacks the good provenance of most the furniture. In museum terms this must be a slight regret but one which is more than balanced by the acquisition in a relatively short space of time of such a major collection.

The Arts and Crafts Movement collections at Cheltenham were given a fitting home as the centrepiece of the new extension to the Art Gallery and Museum opened in 1989. New acquisitions have

continued including glasswares designed by Heywood Sumner and Philip Webb, textile designs by Walter Crane, pottery by Alfred and Louise Powell, and plasterwork by George Jack. The purchase in 1996 of a semi-grand piano designed by Ashbee and made by John Broadwood and Sons in 1900 was a major undertaking which has made an outstanding contribution to the display. Since 1989 the underlying purpose of Arts and Crafts collections at Cheltenham has returned to the original one of education. The collections have been informatively displayed and well documented. More recently access to this information has been made widely available by the publication of two fully illustrated catalogues in co-operation with the publishers, Lund Humphries l8].The collections and the associated archives are widely used by individuals of all ages and backgrounds and by organised groups ranging from primary schoolchildren working on William Morris to GCSE Design and Technology students studying furniture design and to graduates training to be the designers of the future. An opportunity to discover more about the techniques used is provided by the interactive made for the gallery by Rodney Forss, a member of the Guild of Gloucestershire Craftsmen. Contemporary craftspeople have been commissioned to produce work for the gallery just as in the 1920s and 4 30s Waals designed cases for the Art Gallery and Museum. Contributions, including the metal grille by Alan Evans, Chinks Grylls's stained glass window, the seating by William Hall, and the commemorative plaque by Bryant Fedden. have helped to shape to the character of the building and the displays. A new commission for the Arts and Crafts gallery, a pair of glass doors designed by Martin Donlin, is due to be completed at the end of this year. This is one of a number of new projects developed since 1999 and partly funded by the Designation Challenge Fund which herald a new and exciting phase in the development of Cheltenham's Arts and Crafts Movement collections.

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NOTES 1 I am indebted to Annette Carruthers whose research forms the basis for this essay. 2- Alec Clifton Taylor, The Pattern of English Building , London 1962, page 96. 3 DW Herdman in the foreword to the catalogue of the Third Annual Exhibition of Arts and Crafts of Cheltenham and the Cotswolds 30 May - 30 June 1924. 4 FH Knowles in Manual Training , the official journal of the National Association of Manual Training Teachers, Vol XX, July 1923, pages 135-8. 5- Gordon Russell, Designer's Trade, London 1968, page 124. 6- Daniel W Herdman to Peter Waals, 27 October 1927, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum. 7 HC Mossop to Daniel W Herdman, 24 February 1941, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum. 8- Good Citizen's Furniture, the Arts and Crafts Collections at Cheltenham by Annette Carruthers and Mary Greensted and Simplicity or Splendour, Arts and Crafts Living: Objects from the Cheltenham Collections edited by Annette Carruthers and Mary Greensted, both published by Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums in association with Lund Humphries Publishers in 1994 and 1999 respectively.

Mary Greensted studied history and history of art at Leicester University and Gallery Studies at Manchester University. She worked in several museums before coming to Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum as Keeper of Museum in 1974. Her main contribution at Cheltenham has been to highlight and expand the Arts and Crafts Movement collections by a series of exhibitions on designer/makers including Ernest and Sidney Barnsley, William and Eve Simmonds, and C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft. Her career was interrupted by family commitments between 1983-91.

She has job shared the post of Keeper of Visitor Services at Cheltenham since 1991. Her curatorial responsibility is for the decorative arts in particular the Arts and Crafts Movement collections.

She lectures and has written a number of books on the subject. These include Gimson & the Barnsley s (reprinted 1991), The Arts & Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds (1993) as well as the two catalogues on Cheltenham's collections co-writtten/edited with Annette Carruthers.

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Decorative Art Collecting : passion and fashion || The Arts and Crafts Movement collections at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum