One of a number of patterned carpets designed by John Henry Dearle around 1900 for Morris & Co. to be made by machine; the pattern emulated the effect of the more expensive hand-knotted Hammersmith carpets. Another example is in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, Kelmscott Manor. The carpet was given to the Gallery by Martha Wooldridge, (1863-1958) a classical dancer who had been left it by the radical preacher Stewart Headlam, whom she lived with in an Arts & Crafts House called ‘Wavertree’ in St Margarets, Twickenham (Headlam is perhaps most famous for putting up half of Oscar Wilde’s bail when he was tried for ‘gross indecency’ in 1885).
