Six rooms have been reworked in the house where Morris lived as a teenager, and local residents helped shape what visitors will read.
The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow reopens on Saturday 3 October after a rehang and restoration that has reworked six of its gallery spaces.
The gallery is in a Grade II-listed manor where Morris lived in his teenage years. This is the first big overhaul of the building since its 2012 redevelopment, and the reopening has been timed for the 130th anniversary of Morris’s death.
Pieces not shown before are now on display, and the collection has been reordered to give a fuller and more nuanced picture of Morris. The gallery holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of his work as a designer, writer and activist.
Architect Sam Jacob said the aim throughout was to bring “a bit more of a domestic sensibility” to the house. Colour now picks out interior architectural details. Local craftspeople were commissioned to make plinths that resemble furniture, and a hand-blown lamp by designer Stewart Hearn hangs over the front door.
Gallery director Hadrian Garrard said the lamp was there to “make this feel like a home”. He said the gallery chose a careful room by room restoration it could afford to sustain, shaped by the people who use it, instead of building a new wing.
Waltham Forest residents were consulted during the work. Community members helped write interpretation for works on show, and family workshops were used to make labels easy to read at any age. A community advisory panel also gave feedback on curation and interpretation.
The new displays do not smooth over the awkward parts of Morris’s story. His family was rich, but as an adult he threw himself into socialist politics. He also wanted everyone to own beautiful things, yet the textiles sold by his firm, Morris & Co, cost more than most people could pay.
The information desk in the entrance hall has been rebuilt in copper. Garrard said the metal was chosen because Morris’s comfortable start in life came from his father’s investment in the Devon Great Consols Mine in Tavistock, where workers, children among them, laboured in poor conditions.
It reopens on Saturday 3 October 2026.
In Walthamstow, in a Grade II-listed manor where Morris lived as a teenager.
Six gallery spaces have been reworked, pieces not shown before are on display and the collection has been reordered.
The stage musical based on the 2014 film, about lesbian and gay activists who raised money for striking Welsh miners, comes to London after two sold-out…
The canalside park opened in 1960 on land once covered by a white lead factory and its terraced streets. It took until the late 1970s to…
A 27-metre batik hangs above the nave of St Cyprian's in the Bagri Foundation's first Springboard show, the artist's debut in the UK.
Magritte's paintings hang beside work by more than 40 other artists, from a Jeff Koons locomotive to a bird with a woman's face.
We use strictly necessary cookies to run the site and to remember this choice. With your permission we would also use analytics cookies, to count visits and see which stories are read, and advertising cookies, so the adverts that pay for How2London can be shown and measured. You can accept all, reject all, or choose for yourself. Read our cookie policy and privacy policy.
Needed for the site to work and to remember your cookie choice. Always on, no consent required.
Google Analytics 4 counts visits and shows which stories are read. Without consent it runs without cookies.
Google AdSense cookies, used to show and measure adverts. Our own How2London banners need no cookies and are shown either way.
