Steeped in rich, historic charm with its honey-hued stonewall buildings and abundantly peaceful surrounding gardens, The Dial House Hotel in Bourton-on-the-Water offers a sanctuary of beautiful escapism. The characterful hotel dates back to 1698, but before its recent purchase in 2020 the interiors were mis-matched to the history, causing the hotel to fall into a saturated market of beige boutique boarding houses.
Laurence's focus was to highlight the rich and extraordinarily influential design legacy of the Cotswolds. His design fused his love for the area and his passion for the revived late Victorian Arts and Crafts movement. The resulting bespoke style solutions set out to bring new life to the traditional elegance of Cotswold designers like William Morris, balanced with 21st Century expectations of luxury indulgence and comfort.
The LLB team designed five suites, each with its own inspirational Arts and Crafts hero at the heart of the scheme; Oscar (Wilde), Owen (Jones), Walter (Crane), Aubrey (Beardsley) and May (Morris). All suites are adorned with bespoke Llewelyn-Bowen patterns, from floor to ceiling, ensuring each room has its own identity.
MAY MORRIS
May Morris loved and lived in the Cotswolds and used its abundant nature and rich history as the principle design inspiration for her work. She inherited the design responsibilities of Morris and Co after the death of her father, William Morris. While respecting his decorative legacy, May applied a new and vital colour palette to her father's aesthetic that kept Morris and Co at the forefront of homestyle well into the modern era. This room celebrates her exuberant attitude to colour texture and the creative excitement her often daring combinations create.
Patterns: Down the Dilly and Pants on Fire Rainbow, Original Bookworks faux book spines
OSCAR
Named for iconic tastemaker playwright, Oscar Wilde. This room scheme playfully indulges the great man's love of the simple sunflower. Oscar Wilde did so much to promote the creativity and originality of British home design through global median and his highly successful lecture tours. His love of exotic oriental design and his passion for the colour yellow create a space of inspirational and thoughtful comfort.
Patterns: Sunny Side Up and Oscar In The Wilde
OWEN
Born in Wales, Owen Jones used his architectural design practice to give the Art and Crafts movement of the 1880's and 1920's a built legacy. Whilst his buildings remain extremely popular it's his writing that really altered the story of 19th Century design. In the grammar of ornament, Owen Jones painstakingly illustrated decorative styles from the ancient world and from various global traditions that his Victorian audience had not yet been granted access to. This room scheme is a homage to his eclectic and hugely creative aesthetic.
Patterns: Suburban Jungle, Mint Bargello and Pants on Fire Pink
WALTER
Walter Crane is perhaps best known today for his exquisite children's book illustrations that capture an idyllic nostalgia for the delights of a country childhood at the centre of his work is a love for mature and in particular birds, whom he studies with a true aficionados eye. Early into the Arts and Crafts movement Crane extended the style's inspirational palette to include design motifs from the Queen Anne and early Georgian period, which links his work to the Dial House and has inspired the soft colours of the room.
Patterns: Birdity Abserdity in Pink, White and Blue
AUBREY
Doomed youthful prodigy, Aubrey Beardsley sent shockwaves across the face of 1890's design with his astonishingly original illustrative style before his untimely death at 24. Always elegant, his pen and ink drawings often used a decadent sophistication that fitted perfectly with art nouveau society's apes nous le deluge opulence. An early devotee of William Morris, Beardsley used Arts and Crafts principles in a thoroughly modern way. He was known as a great interiors stylist, clashing strongly contrasting effects and unusual combinations.
Patterns: Naughty Aubrey and Pesky Meddling
To buy the products featured in these rooms visit our shop. For more information on our interior design services click here or email showroom@llb.co.uk.