History of the cottage at Stoneywell

A watercolour painting called 'Stoneywell Cottage' by Edward Davies, depicting the cottage nestled into the sloping, rocky garden — 'Stoneywell Cottage' by Edward Davies | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

From summer house to family home, Stoneywell is the enduring realisation of one man’s Arts and Crafts vision. The cottage and its collection provide a rare surviving example of an Arts and Crafts home in its entirety, and demonstrates part of an international movement of British origin.

Designing the cottage at Stoneywell

Ernest Gimson designed the cottage to appear as if organically grown among the rocky outcrops of the Charnwood Forest, and the cottage's 11 rooms sit on seven different levels – an intriguing challenge to count.

In fact, Ernest was so successful in establishing Stoneywell as part of the landscape that one ex-local, who'd left before it had been built, said on returning to the area that it was odd that he should have forgotten the old cottage.

Except for its slate roof – which replaced the original thatch when it was destroyed by fire in 1939 – Stoneywell retains much of its original magic. First intended as a summer house away from Leicester industry before becoming a family home from the 1950s, Stoneywell was adapted rather than changed.

A view of the Dining Room at Stoneywell with a slate floor, steps leading up to the left and the dining table and chairs on the right — The Dining Room at Stoneywell | © National Trust Images/Susan Guy

A family home

Today, the cottage is still furnished with many original pieces made by Ernest and his circle of craftsmen. The dining table with a top fashioned from a single oak plank stands proud beyond the front door, while stone hot-water bottles on the slate steps and children's toys in the nursery allude to family life in a much-loved home.

Stoneywell survives as the realisation of one man's dream for a simpler life, and the enduring embodiment of a rural escape which speaks to us even today.

'There is the most extraordinary visual, structural and functional logic to Stoneywell. Of course, there is the other structural and functional logic that says: Build a house of brick on level ground – but that is the difference between building and architecture.'

– Nicholas Cooper, architectural historian

Detail of Leicester wallpaper by J H Dearle from Morris & Co, in the Morning Room at Wightwick Manor — William Morris wallpaper, a fine example of Arts and Crafts design | © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

Arts and Crafts movement

Growing from a desire to revive the skill of craftsmanship, the Arts and Crafts philosophy aimed to restore simplicity and honesty to how buildings and furnishings were made. The movement was a reaction against industrialisation and mass production in the Victorian era.

Although it was at its height between about 1895 and 1915, its origins lie a little earlier, with the great thinkers John Ruskin and William Morris, who railed against what they felt were the evils of mass industrialisation and machine production.

Inspiring others

Their philosophies of good craftsmanship and pride in one’s work were embraced by people like Ernest Gimson, Sidney and Ernest Barnsley, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Edwin Lutyens.

Such architects used local materials and designed their buildings down to the last detail, sometimes including the furniture, which they might even make themselves.

The Arts and Crafts was a British art and design movement which went international and is also one whose legacy is still with us today. Stoneywell is the epitome of William Morris' golden rule: