Strawberry Thief upholsters the armchairs while Emery’s Willow is featured as a wallpaper in Emery Walker’s House
At Pooky we're thrilled to launch another lampshade collection in collaboration with Morris & Co. To help us delve a little deeper into the history of these gorgeous designs, we invited Morris & Co to share the story of Emery Walker's house - an extraordinary historic home that was the fruit of a beautiful friendship. Here's a special guest post...
Every house has a story, but Emery Walker’s House boasts a rare British design legacy. Sir Emery Walker (1851-1933) was a famed engraver, typographer and photographer and was a notable figure in the arts and crafts movement. Walker was a close friend and creative collaborator of William Morris, and their relationship bore seemingly endless fruit that captivated audiences at the time and still today.
Daisy wallpaper on a bedroom wall.
A friendship built on passion
With Walker’s industry expertise as a noted typographer, Morris established the Kelmscott Press for book printing, one of the many triumphs in Morris’s impressive career. Living a mere stone’s throw from one another in Hammersmith and visiting each other almost daily, Walker collaborated with and supported Morris in the great passions of their lives, including decorating his house almost entirely in Morris & Co. designs. To this day, 7 Hammersmith Terrace remains one of the largest repositories of original in-situ Morris & Co. designs worldwide.
Wallflower resides in a drawing room as a wallpaper in Woad Blue colourway.
Preserved for the future
The incredible preservation of the house is primarily credited to Sir Emery’s daughter, Dorothy, and her friend and co-habitant, Elizabeth de Haas, since taking over stewardship of the house in 1999 under Emery Walker’s House Trust.
From this preservation came a beautiful collaborative collection for Morris & Co. Our Emery Walker’s House collection features 10 William Morris designs, some brand-new and some reintroduced, that had been lovingly preserved within the walls of Walker’s home. A tender recognition of past friendships and lovingly decorated homes, this collection offers fresh and reawakened designs for fans of Morris & Co., Arts & Crafts appreciators with a penchant for nostalgia and just a little grandeur.
Wallflower resides in a drawing room as a wallpaper in Woad Blue colourway.
A flicker of something new
This legacy of camaraderie and design has now been elegantly captured in a capsule collection of lampshades, shining a light on 7 Hammersmith Terrace once more. You’ll see designs such as Wallflower (1890), which famously adorns Sir Emery Walker’s drawing room, while Rose (1883) creatively responds to the house’s beautifully traditional Victorian-style garden.
Emery Walker’s House collection of wallpapers and fabrics shines in a new light in the tempting tapered shades and pleated perfection of Pooky Lights, a collaboration we’re sure William Morris himself would adore.
Pooky x Morris & Co. Lampshades
Bower, a densely packed design shows a forest floor full of floral delight. William Morris designed Bower in 1877 as a vibrant tribute to the forest walks and flowers he adored.
Borage, an 1883 design by William Morris, has been transformed into a lampshade for this collection, featuring spirited floral pattern beloved by bees and other pollinators.
Rambling Rose depicts that iconic stalwart of forest walks and cottage gardens like the English rose.
Wallflower is an 1890 design where scrolling acanthus leaves foreground tenderly rendered wallflowers creating a pattern of enormous energy and vitality.
Shop the Morris and Co. Lampshade Collection
Visit Emery Walker House
If you are looking to explore Emery Walker House yourself and soak up the designs of William Morris and his collaborators, tours take place at 11am and 1pm on Thursdays and Saturdays. The guided tour takes approximately 1 and a half hours from start to finish.
Book your tickets and find out more about visiting Emery Walker House.
