Al Fresco Working on Kings Road

Now that we have a respite from the wet and the cold, let us imagine what the workers at the Weaving House, Tapestry Studio and St Cross would have been doing on such warm days.

Weaving a hand-knotted rug on a tapestry loom at Haslemere,
Art Workers Quarterly, 1902
(from Haslam, Arts and Crafts Carpets, David Black, London, 1991)

The steep slope behind this weaver is a sure sign of the location on Kings Road or Foundry Meadow.  The large tree trunk glimpsed in the top left hand corner, and the small section of building behind have not been positively identified!  This is the only photograph I have seen showing hand-knotted rug-making in practice at Haslemere.  The design being executed is likely to be by Godfrey Blount.  I have found no evidence of known Haslemere carpets in existence today.

Group of spinners and weavers at St Cross, Haslemere,
The Studio, XLIII, 1908
(from Haslam, Arts and Crafts Carpets, David Black, London, 1991)

The ladies in the photograph above can be clearly seen to be working on applique 'peasant tapestry'.  I have another version of this photograph on my blog, but this one taken from Haslam's excellent Arts and Crafts Carpets (David Black, London, 1991) is infinitely clearer, and shows the detail of what they were working on.  On the left we have a recognisable spinning wheel, on the right, the lady in white is working on what seems to be an different type of spinning wheel, one I have not seen before.  *Amended in September 2012*  The "different type of spinning wheel" is actually a hank winder – not a spinning wheel. The yarn is made into a hank on a hank winder before being dyed, then put back on the hank winder before being wound onto a cone or bobbin.  Sitting in the middle of the photograph may be Ethel Blount, she certainly has the hair colour but it is difficult to be certain.

I wonder if the photographs were staged outdoors or whether they depict routine outdoor working?

'Miss Flora Synge at her spinning wheel at Kings Road, Haslemere in 1917'
from  Janaway, John,  Surrey: A Photographic Record 1850-1920, Countryside Books, 1984

Finally we have a photograph which I have posted before of Flora Synge.  When I originally posted this photograph I had a comment made by her great niece saying that Flora "used to take her spinning wheel on the train when she returned home to Liverpool to visit her parents" which gives an interesting insight to how attached some of the members of the Peasant Arts movement were to their craft.  Behind Flora may be a wall of perhaps a building with some sort of climbing plant against it, or a very steep slope cut into the bank.