William Morris’s Bed

William Morris’s bed is a hybrid made up of Elizabethan, Jacobean and later wall panelling, newel posts and assorted fragments of woodwork, which were made into a bed probably around 1840. It was much loved by Morris, who in 1891 wrote the poem ‘For the bed a Kelmscott’, in which the bed, a haven of rest, is placed in the context of the ‘kind and dear’ old Manor and its river landscape. The embroidered pelmet and curtains were designed by his daughter May and worked by May and her assistants in the embroidery department of Morris & Co. from 1891 – 93. The coverlet was designed c.1910 by May and embroidered by her mother Jane and close friends.