Buscot Wood

The Collected Letters by Sasha Ward

I've finished the last volume of The Collected Letters of William Morris edited by Norman Kelvin.  Only one mention in this volume of the walk to Buscot Wood that he often took with his daughter Jenny.  Now that I have my OS Explorer Map with Kelmscott in the middle and the borders of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire laid out on one sheet, I can see where they walked to. I think I've been drawing the woods from "the big field" between the Manor and the river: the dark shape on the left and middle left in the drawings below.

The most detailed descriptions in the last volume are connected to the Kelmscott Press, the collecting of illuminated books and manuscripts and the designing of borders and lettering. The tiny scale of his drawings when you see the real things is incredible.

WM illustrations from the Collected Letters

WM illustrations from the Collected Letters

I've done a few drawings of the vines on Kelmscott Manor and just spent an absorbing hour on a brush and ink copy of the "y" from a set of initial letters with vines (above right). 

These two drawings are mine.

These two drawings are mine.