Chipping Campden - Arts and Crafts Movement

Arts and Crafts Movement

In the early 20th century, the town became known as a centre for the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement, following the move of Charles Robert Ashbee with the members of his Guild and School of Handicraft from the East End of London in 1902. The Guild of Handicraft specialised in metalworking, producing jewellery and enamels, as well as hand-wrought copper and wrought ironwork, and furniture-making. A number of artists and writers settled in the area, including F. L. Griggs, the etcher, who built Dover's Court, (Now known as New Dover's House) one of the last significant Arts and Crafts houses, and set up the Campden Trust with Norman Jewson and others, initially to protect Dover's Hill from development. H. J. Massingham, the rural writer who celebrated the traditions of the English countryside, also settled near the town. Ananda Coomaraswamy, the Sri Lankan philosopher and art critic who was a colleague of Ashbee, settled at Broad Campden where Ashbee adapted the Norman chapel for him.