What Is the Arts and Crafts Movement?
The Arts and Crafts movement was a design and social reform movement that began in Britain in the 1860s and spread across Europe and North America. It argued that objects should be made by hand, that materials should be used honestly, and that industrial mass production was degrading both craft and the people who practised it. Its ideas reshaped domestic interiors, architecture, and the decorative arts — and Emery Walker's House at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, London, is a preserved example of an Arts and Crafts home where you can see those ideas in practice.
Core principles
The movement grew out of concern that factory production was separating makers from their work and flooding homes with cheap, poorly made goods. Its followers generally agreed on a few connected beliefs:
- Handcraft over machine production. Skill, time, and the maker's judgement were treated as essential to good design.
- Honest materials. Wood should look like wood, metal like metal; surfaces should not pretend to be something else.
- Truth to materials and function. An object's form should follow what it is made of and what it is for.
- The unity of art and craft. Decoration, structure, and everyday use were not separate categories.
- Design as a social question. Good surroundings were seen as a route to better lives, not just a matter of taste.
These principles were often easier to state than to live by. Handmade goods cost more, which meant the movement's finest work was frequently available only to wealthier households — a tension its own critics noticed at the time.
What Arts and Crafts looks like in a home
If you are trying to recognise the style in a building or an interior, these are the features to look for:
| Feature | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Woodwork | Exposed beams, panelling, and joinery in oak or other solid timber, often left unstained |
| Wallpaper and textiles | Repeating botanical or geometric patterns, block-printed or woven rather than printed by machine |
| Windows | Leaded or stained glass, sometimes with small decorative panels |
| Furniture | Built-in cupboards, settles, and shelving designed for the specific room |
| Fireplaces and fittings | Copper, brass, or wrought-iron details, often hand-finished |
| Overall effect | Rooms that feel layered and handmade rather than uniform or showroom-perfect |
A single house rarely shows every feature, and Arts and Crafts interiors often mix with earlier or later elements. The clearest signal is usually the combination of solid, visible craftsmanship and surface decoration drawn from nature.
Key figures and workshops
The movement is closely associated with a small group of designers, writers, and firms:
- William Morris — designer, poet, and social thinker; his firm produced wallpapers, textiles, furniture, and stained glass that became the movement's visual signature.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti — painter and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose medievalising approach influenced Arts and Crafts aesthetics.
- Morris & Co. — the decorative arts firm through which many of the movement's most recognisable patterns and interiors were produced.
- Emery Walker — a leading figure in British fine printing, associated with the Kelmscott Press and with the wider Arts and Crafts circle.
These names overlap with the Pre-Raphaelites and with the private press movement, so you will often see them grouped together. The shared thread is a preference for skilled making and considered design over industrial uniformity.
How the movement shaped homes and architecture
Arts and Crafts ideas influenced British domestic architecture through architects who designed houses as complete environments — structure, fittings, and decoration considered together. The style spread to the United States and continental Europe, where it adapted to local materials and building traditions. Its emphasis on simplicity and honest construction also fed into later design thinking, even where the handcraft ideal was dropped.
For a visitor, the practical result is that an Arts and Crafts house is best read as a whole: the joinery, the wallpapers, the glass, and the furniture are meant to relate to one another rather than to stand alone.
Seeing it at Emery Walker's House
Emery Walker's House at 7 Hammersmith Terrace is described as an Arts and Crafts home in London, and it is a useful place to test the features above against a real interior. When visiting, look for:
- Original surface decoration — wallpapers and textiles that show pattern design of the period.
- Joinery and built-in elements — woodwork that is part of the room rather than added to it.
- The relationship between rooms — how decoration, furniture, and light are handled together.
- The house as a lived-in collection — a home shaped by its owner's circle and interests, not a museum reconstruction.
Before you go, check the Plan Your Day page on emerywalker.org.uk for current visiting arrangements, since opening details and any ticketing requirements are set by the site and can change.