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Hammersmith Terrace seen from across the River Thames | ||||
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No 7 Hammersmith Terrace is part of a terrace of 17 tall, narrow houses, built between Chiswick Mall and Lower Mall, Hammersmith, on the north bank of the River Thames between 1755 and 1800. Because they were built over such a long period of time, the houses are all slightly different from each other, but as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner pointed out in the Buildings of England, the houses, being a terrace, are surprisingly urban in appearance for the date: at this period Hammersmith and Chiswick were still villages several miles west of the fringes of London proper. This predominantly rural character was evident around Hammersmith Terrace up until the 1860s, when Hammersmith Terrace was still bordered on its north side by market gardens. Until that time the Terrace was genteel in character. Former residents of No 7 include the painter Philippe de Loutherbourg, a contemporary and rival of Gainsborough's, and who is buried nearby in Chiswick churchyard. By the time Emery Walker moved into the Terrace in the late 1870s, the character of the area - and of the Terrace - had changed considerably. The market gardens gave way to smaller houses, and industry - waterworks, breweries, timber wharves - appeared along the river either side of the Terrace. Many of the Terrace's houses were in multiple occupation - one had 16 people living in it in the 1881 census. The area was still popular, because of the beauty of its riverside location with artists of various kinds. Neighbours in the Terrace included the bookbinder T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, with whom Walker set up the Doves Press in 1900, the calligrapher Edward Johnston, and the art critic F.G. Stephens. Walker's friend William Morris was a short distance away in Upper Mall. Since the 1950s the industry has departed, and the riverside area forms part of the Thames Path. More recent residents of the Terrace have included the writer A.P. Herbert and the artists Julian Trevelyan and Mary Fedden. | ||||
| The Collections at 7 Hammersmith Terrace | ||||
The dining room of 7 Hammersmith Terrace photographed in the late 1930s, a few years after Emery Walker's death. On the table in the foreground are some Morris & Co. 'Bird' hanging which came from Morris' nearby home, Kelmscott House.
The dining room as it is today. The 'Bird' hangings are now, rather more suitably, displayed on the walls and door. The plans chest and bookcase were designed by and belonged to Philip Webb, and the William Morris 'Visitor Chair' can be seen bottom right. |
Emery Walker moved into No 7 Hammersmith Terrace in 1903, but he had already spent 25 years in a neighbouring house - No 3 - and many of the contents were moved along the road, as Dorothy Walker's diaries from the period, preserved in the house, reveal. The style of the decoration is today very much as it was when Walker lived there. It is typical of the homes of many of the key figures in the Arts and Crafts movement. Photographs of the interiors of William Morris's own house, Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, show a similar combination of Morris & Co textiles, wallpapers and furniture, 17th and 18th-century furniture, middle eastern and North African textiles and ceramics.
Walker was a close friend of Philip Webb (1831-1915), the architect and designer who, with William Morris, was a leading member of the Arts and Crafts movement. When Webb died he left all his possessions to Emery Walker, and many of these, including important pieces of his own furniture, which he had designed for Morris and Co., as well as books and other personal items survive in the house. There are also a number of mementoes of William Morris himself, including a 17th-century chair form his library, given to Walker after Morris's death by his widow, Janey, woven Morris & Co. hangings from the library at Kelmscott House, and even several pairs of Morris's spectacles. From the early years of the 20th century Walker spent an increasing amount of his spare time in the Cotswolds, and from 1922 until his death rented Daneway house near Cirencester. He developed as a result friendships with many of the key figures of the Cotswolds Arts and Crafts movement, including the furniture makers and designers Ernest Gimson and Ernest Barnsley and the ceramic artists Alfred and Louise Powell and Grace Barnsley, and examples of their furniture and ceramics are in the house. These include a number of pieces made specially for Walker, such as a desk by Ernest Barnsley and Wedgwood plates, cups and jugs decorated by Alfred and Louise Powell. | |||
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After her father's death in 1933, Dorothy Walker preserved the interior of the house much as it had been in his lifetime. At Miss Walker's death in 1963, the house passed to her companion Elizabeth de Haas, who had looked after her in her old age, and Miss de Haas also sought to preserve the house's interior and secure its future. In order to set up the Emery Walker Trust which she hoped would continue to do this after her death, she sold Sir Emery's library of private press books to Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum in 1990. A number of important Arts and Crafts interiors have been recreated in rural settings - Standen in Sussex, Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire, but No 7 Hammersmith Terrace is a unique survival of an urban Arts and Crafts interior belonging to an important though neglected figure in the movement. |
The drawing room of 7 Hammersmith Terrace as it was in the 1930s.
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