Honiton Lace

Illustration: Honiton lace sprig design.

The hand lace making industry of East Devon was traditionally said to have started with the influx of Flemish refugees in the sixteenth century, although certain forms of embroidery and cut work in particular which is often seen as the forerunner to the lace craft, were produced before this time. Although analogies with earlier designs produced in East Devon do correspond to lace work produced in Belgium, it is difficult to be fully accurate. The nature of the lace industry was one of often borrowing and adapting patterns from different areas and incorporating them into native or domestic styles, which makes it difficult to pinpoint indigenous styles and geographically localised areas of production.

Illustration: Honiton lace poppy and bryony design. 

One thing that is certain is that East Devon produced fine lace work that was created in numerous villages in the East Devon area for a number of generations. The reason that it is often given the general title of Honiton, rather than the specific village of production, is the fact that Honiton being the main town in the area was where the finished lace was brought together for shipment via stagecoach and then later by train to London in particular.

There is a definite style to Honiton lace, which commonly used floral work that was often motif based and could consist of relatively large gestures. The flower motif would be worked separately and then integrated into a piece of lace work via the background netting. Motifs were often strung together through the netting background and could therefore be used, depending on the scale, for anything from the edging of a tablecloth to that of a small handkerchief. This intriguing design work may appear more robust perhaps than some of the finer examples from different areas of Europe; however, the work does tie in with the ongoing English use of a relatively unstylised form of nature, which was so much a part of the general pattern style of the culture.

Illustration: Honiton lace open fibre.

Some of the work produced during the early to mid-nineteenth century copied some of the floral wallpapers that were so popular at the time. This could help to explain some of the larger examples of floral motifs, although by all accounts many were less than successful as judged by critics and the lace makers themselves. There is a certain similarity with English embroidery work, particularly of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. This may well be either a coincidence or perhaps an example of designers from different genres tapping into the same font of initial inspiration, the vocabulary of English design work perhaps.

Either way Honiton lace despite its inevitable European links was altogether a domestically inspired craft that produced work that was both admired and copied outside of the geographical area of East Devon. So much so that to some extent at least Honiton is sometimes referred to as a style rather than a geographical moniker. Making the scene even more complex is the fact that Honiton lace makers, like so many others in Europe, also produced work in other European styles, as the fashion demanded, so that lace work could appear as both the fashionable lace style of the day and yet still be classed as Honiton.

Illustration: Honiton lace poppy and bryony design.

Honiton lace, like so many other hand lace producing areas of Europe, is no longer a viable industry. The twentieth century was particularly unkind to the craft, when fashion, for both costume and interior, minimalised its use of external fringes and borders. Because the industry was literally at the mercy of the dictates of fashion it found it near impossible to either diversify or adapt. The Royal family have felt compelled through most of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, to commission lace work, be it on a fairly small scale, from the various traditional lace centres of Britain and Ireland. Queen Victoria was a fairly substantial commissioner of lace work, and Honiton lace was incorporated into the wedding dress of Princess Diana.

Honiton still sells locally produced lace today, although mostly of an antique nature, and honitonlace.com is a good place to either buy or explore this uniquely English lace craft, as well as find tools to experience the craft yourself.

Illustration: Honiton lace spray illustrating Flemish and fibre stitch.

Reference links:
The Dictionary of Needlework
Identification of Lace (Shire Library)
Honiton Lace Patterns
The Honiton Lace Book
1862 HONITON LACE FLOUNCE DEBENHAM EXHBITION LONDON
Introduction to Honiton Lace
Royal Honiton Lace
New Patterns in Honiton Lace
The Technique of Honiton Lace
**REPRINT** Cole, Alan S. (Alan Summerly), 1846-1934. Honiton lace industry copy of report of Mr. Alan Cole, Commissioner from the South Kensington Museum, on the present condition and prospects of the Honiton lace industry. Ordered by the House of Commons to be**REPRINT**
The History of the Honiton Lace Industry (South-West Studies)
Birds and Animals in Honiton Lace
Three Generations in the Honiton Lace Trade: A Family History
Flowers in Honiton Lace
Antique Point and Honiton Lace
Further Steps in Honiton Lace
Honiton lace: Basic technical instruction book
Honiton Fillings: A Collection from 18c. Honiton Lace
A Honiton Lace Maker: The Pat Perryman Story

Newton, Jones and Willis Embroidery Work

Illustration: Newton, Jones and Willis. Embroidered section of an Archbishop's cape, 1851.

The largely ecclesiastical suppliers Newton, Jones and Willis exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. This Birmingham based company was by no means the only ecclesiastically based company at the Exhibition. While in today's world it may appear to be somewhat of a niche market, in the mid-nineteenth century companies like Newton, Jones and Willis were much more mainstream and supplied a healthy ecclesiastical market, with a number of companies also branching out into the then fashionable and gothically inspired domestic interior market.

Newton, Jones and Willis supplied work in a number of disciplines including metalwork, stained glass and textiles. Textiles have always formed a substantial element in church furnishings and ceremonies whether they be altar cloths, hangings or costumes. Embroidery has long dominated the genre and English ecclesiastical history has a long connection with embroidery both professional and amateur that goes back to the pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon period. Although the Church of England after the Reformation toned down the number of ceremonies and furnishings in the mid-sixteenth century, by the time of Catholic emancipation in 1829 and the subsequent Catholic church building projects that followed, the Church of England had become much more ornamental and decorative in its furnishings and ceremonies. Although the re-emergence of the Catholic Church in England was by no means a catalyst for nineteenth century decoration and ornamentation within the Church of England, it could well have been a factor at least within ecclesiastical textiles.

By the mid nineteenth century, companies such as Newton, Jones and Willis were able to supply a decoratively extensive range of ceremonial costumes and furnishings for ecclesiastical use. Both illustrations shown here were hand embroidered examples using silk and gold thread. The first illustration shows an orphrey or heavily embroidered area of an Archbishop's cape. This was specifically designed for the Church of England, other denominations having their own costumes and accessories. The second illustration shows a portion of an Altar Cloth, also for the Church of England. Both are highly stylised though well within the parameters of the fashionable gothic revival and lend a certain amount to the decorative and design work of A W N Pugin for example.

Illustration: Newton, Jones and Willis. Embroidered Altar Cloth, 1851.

The company used a number of designers and architects work throughout their history, which went well into the twentieth century. They were known to have used design work supplied by E. W. Godwin, G. E. Street, F. E. Howard and William Burges. Although based in Birmingham, the company eventually had workshops in both London and Liverpool, as well as Birmingham. They also had an all important flagship showroom in London where some of their best ecclesiastical fair was on show. However, much of their merchandise was sold through their numerous and regularly updated catalogues, as well as through wide scaling advertising through various ecclesiastical circles, whether that be national or localised.

The 1851 Great Exhibition was not the only international venue for Newton, Jones and Willis; they also appeared at the 1862 exhibition also held in London, as well as the 1873 exhibition in Vienna and the 1878 exhibition in Paris. Many companies found these venues, although expensive, often worth the fee as both domestic and foreign orders could be gained through the exhibition of prestigious decorative work. Although the examples were often not for sale, but had been produced as a guide showing either the flexibility or more usually the stature and standing of the company, these examples were often of such extraordinary skill, many having been painstakingly hand produced. They were in fact often textile art pieces in their own right and were supreme examples of handcraft production of the nineteenth century. Where most of these 'show' examples are now, if any indeed survive, would make for an interesting project.

Reference links:
Ecclesiastical Embroidery (Batsford Embroidery Paperback)
Butterick Art & Ecclesiastical Embroidery c.1898 (Metropolitan Handy Series)
Ideas for Church Embroidery.
Embroidery in the Church
Clothed in Majesty: European Ecclesiastical Textiles from the Detroit Institute of Arts
Traditional Icelandic embroidery
Ancient Russian Ecclesiastical Embroideries
Needlecraft Practical Journal #85 c.1910 - Ecclesiastical Embroidery
English Ecclesiastical Embroideries of the XIII to XVI Centuries with 33 Illustrations [Victoria & Albert Museum Catalogues]
Book of Byzantine-Ukrainian Ecclesiastical Embroidery
New Ecclesiastical Embroidery
Stitches for God: The Story of Washington Cathedral Needlepoint
Parament Patterns: Counted Cross-Stitch for Altar, Lectern, and Pulpit Hangings
Ecclesiastical sewing guild, St. Luke's student wives
High Fashion in the Church
Church needlework ;: A manual of practical instruction
The work-table magazine of church and decorative needlework, embroidery, tambour, crochet, knitting, netting, etc

Acanthus and Vine by William Morris

Illustration: William Morris. Acanthus and Vine tapestry design, 1879.

Acanthus and Vine was the first tapestry design produced by William Morris. In fact he personally hand wove the original in 1879, using his bedroom at Kelmscott House as a temporary tapestry studio. He facetiously nicknamed the tapestry Cabbage and Vine because of the less than stylised acanthus leaves. Although some still prefer to call the piece by Morris nickname, the composition is more in keeping with the classical traditions, be it through the Northern Renaissance, of the iconic acanthus and vine leaves so readily recognised as being so much a part of the classical world.

Morris himself had always wanted to achieve the ideal of weaving his own tapestries. He saw this form of textile craft as the highest expression of all the textile-based crafts and wished that everyone would follow his example of using tapestries as wall coverings instead of wallpaper, which if he didn't loathe, he at least actively disliked as an interior medium. Although this was certainly only a personal preference of Morris, it can be said that tapestry weaving was the textile craft that perhaps came closest to being recognised as a fine art craft in its own right.

Morris took nearly five months and well over five hundred hours to complete Acanthus and Vine. We know this because he kept a careful record of time spent on the tapestry. He found the process, as do many, extremely therapeutic. The physical process of slow hand weaving forces the individual to sit within another world where the priorities are not those of the every day and the familiar. Hand tapestry weaving cannot be hurried or rushed as it is a process led discipline and good results can only be achieved through yielding to the physical process of the yarn and tapestry frame. Because tapestry weaving literally forced Morris out of the busy life that entailed a Morris & Co schedule whereby he was at the beck and call of the wealthy and the titled, all of whom wanted Morris to make personal appearances during the refurbishment of their interiors by his company, he was more than happy to spend the time creatively and quietly weaving. His only companion was usually his daughter May who used to sit at the bench watching her father adding coloured yarns to the weaving.

Illustration: William Morris. Acanthus and Vine tapestry design, 1879.

Although Morris first example of tapestry weaving, like most peoples, was a little stretched and misshapen, he was not put off and being the individual he was, learnt from mistakes made during the weaving process. He soon had Morris & Co producing a range of tapestry pieces for sale to his wealthy clients. He moved John Henry Dearle who had been in charge of stained glass production, and placed him in charge of the new department.

Although many would see the copious amounts of textile and wallpaper design work that Morris produced over decades, as perhaps his leading legacy, Morris would undoubtedly have seen his significant but more limited tapestry production as a more fitting gift to the history of textile craft.

Although the contemporary world of tapestry weaving was not started by Morris, it was his enthusiasm for the genre that helped to engender a serious aspect to the craft. It is one that was to see a number of European fine artists during the latter nineteenth century and all through the twentieth, treat the craft of tapestry weaving with the dignity it had probably not seen since the days of the large Belgian and French tapestries of the Northern Renaissance.

Tapestry has now gone well beyond its original remit of the woven, as a number of twenty first century exhibitions have shown. Although Morris might well have disapproved of the path that contemporary tapestry has taken, there is no doubt that the craft is a vital element in both textile and fine art worlds. At least some of this recognition can be placed with Morris, along with his initial and temporary bedroom tapestry studio of 1879.

Reference links:
William Morris: A Life for Our Time
HISTORY OF THE MERTON ABBEY TAPESTRY WORKS FOUNDED BY WILLIAM MORRIS.
William Morris Textiles
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Pictorial Archives)
Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions)
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home
William Morris on Art and Socialism
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris Vase 20"x20"
The Gardens of William Morris
The Art of William Morris in Cross Stitch
Tree of Life Ruby Wall Tapestry with free hanging rod by William Morris, 40 x 53 inches
Counted Cross Stitch Chart Woodpecker on Tree of Life by Arts and Crafts Movement Founder William Morris
William Morris Birds 20"x20"